


Every Day of the Week and Several Hundred Years

by kihadu



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Arguing, Asexual Character, Blood Drinking, Canon Disabled Character, Casual abuse of history, Drunk vampires, Drunken Makeouts, Fluff, Grey-A, M/M, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Tentacles, Trans Character, Trans Tendo Choi, long distance love, vampires who drink tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:25:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 66,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1368829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/pseuds/kihadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet first in Egypt, 1242.</p><p>It’s a Wednesday, if that matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

They meet first in Egypt, 1242.

It’s a Wednesday, if that matters. It does to Hermann, who’s never liked Wednesdays, ever since that Wednesday in 1002 with the snowstorm.

Other notable events of 1242 include the Kleve’s upgrade to a city and the discovery that the heart has separate ventricles. Newton’s still pissed about that one. Hermann’s not happy about Kleve, but he won’t say why.

It isn’t an entirely auspicious meeting, all things considered, but it isn’t an entirely auspicious year. It’s like a weekend with a series of mildly irritating events that, later on, you’re more than happy to forget about.

Course, Newton and Hermann never forget anything. Immortality stretches both ways and forgotten memories is lost life.

It’s Wednesday in Egypt on a cold night in a town that Hermann has just arrived in. He doesn’t yet know if he’ll stay in the town but he doesn’t know if he’ll leave, and before he makes any decisions he needs some warm blood and a dark bed.

They meet at a place that today might be considered a bar and in that era, in that country, is a somewhat illicit drinking den.

Newton loves it. He loves the people and the noise and he loves sinking into the buzz of conversation and old sweat and bad alcohol. He’s been there since an hour or two after sundown - he’s never been much of an early-night person - and he’s good and drunk, with his arm around a warm back. It’s midnight when the back starts to move and the man attached to it turns and says to Newton, with boldness belied by alcohol, that he wants to go home.

Newton’s always been more than a little bad at understanding other people’s intentions, so it takes the man’s insistent tug on his hand before he realises that the man wants to go home, and he wants to take Newton with him.

They stumble out into the cold air, and the coldness makes the man gasp and turn to Newton for a hug, that turns into a kiss, that turns into Newton being pressed against the door frame by very eager hands. He’s going to get fed or at least laid tonight, and either will do but even if the man leaves him there alone, Newton’s had a good night.

“Excuse me,” sneers a voice in the local language with a very foreign accent. “What in devil’s name are you doing?”

The man jolts away, but Newton keeps a firm grip on his wrist so he cannot go very far. Newton, smartarse that he is, looks Hermann up and down, and pulls the human closer against his body.

“Not you.” The smirk freezes a bit when he realises what he’s addressing. He hazards a guess and switches to a form of German that isn’t used anymore. “What are you doing?”

Hermann is cold and hungry and tired. His hair is much better than it will be in future years but his leg is not, and he is not the sort of person to build his mood off the state of his hair. “Of course I’d pick the one bloody town in this godforsaken place with one of you,” says Hermann.

“Oi! I was here first. You better not fuck this up for me, I’ve got a good thing going here.”

Hermann sneers down his nose at Newton. “If I have my way we will see neither hide nor hair of the other ever again.”

Newton is more than happy to live with that.

  
  


Eight hundred years later Hermann takes the Pons from Newton’s hands and tries very hard to recall that he’s lived a marvellous life. If it ends now, he can accept that. He doesn’t want to, but there’s not much else to be done.

In any case, Newton will not survive an incompatible Drift again, and Hermann’s as close to compatible as they’re going to get.

He fits the Pons to his head and looks to his right. Newton looks grimly back.

“Alright, Hermie,” Newton says, smirking, because of course, now of all times, he can still find it within himself to needle at Hermann. His fingers hover over the button. “Let’s do this.”


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A more detailed explanation of the tags is as follows: there is minimal explicit sexual content, but there is some. There are no incidents of the ace character having sex for the sake of their partner. Tendo being trans scarcely mentioned, though he himself is a major character. Blood drinking is not excessively described. Newton still has his mental health issues and Hermann has his leg. The tentacle thing is mentioned so super briefly please don't let that turn you off. 
> 
> There's probably going to be five or six chapters total. There will be some use of dead languages that, where used, should (hopefully) have a mouseover translation. I do not study linguistics and most of the phrases have been taken directly from poems and old texts.

Newton lands in Hong Kong on a Monday night, nearly Tuesday, and is greeted by a scientist trying to be professional without yawning. Newton’s in a shirt with a tie with his sleeves rolled down. He’s trying to look his best for the new Shatterdome, so he forgives the woman - Natalie, her name is, and she’s not the expert in kaiju biology because that honour belongs with Newton, but she’s up there. She shakes his hand and welcomes him, and takes one of his two bags.

He doesn’t like travelling, and travels light as a result. He misses his xBox.

“There’s seven of us, at the moment - eight with you. Three - well, four for kaiju -”

“You have a kaiju liver, don’t you?” interrupts Newton. He doesn’t really care about the people. He’ll meet them soon enough, and he’s not here for them. He’s here for the kaiju.

Natalie blinks, thrown by the switch in conversation. “How did you know?”

“Heard a rumour. Do you?”

“Not a whole liver.”

“Half a liver, quarter of a liver. Any liver is more liver than I’ve ever seen.” There’s an interruption.

“Doctor Geiszler! It’s so great to meet you!” An enthusiastic little man with impeccable teeth and a strong Hong Kong accent bounces out from behind some machines and snatches Newton’s hand into a handshake. “Call me James. It’s so exciting to have you here! We thought they were going to send you to Sydney, but, lucky us, here you are!”

“Newt, please,” says Newton, reclaiming his hand. “I asked for Sydney. Got put here instead.”

“We’re better.”

“Oh, I know that. I just like warm places.” He looked around the lab. “This is a little small, isn’t it? If you’ve got eight, like you said.”

“We share space with J-Tech. Alina and Tammy spend most of their time there.”

“And Nicolas,” interjects James. “Whenever Doctor Gottlieb lets him get away.” The disdain in his voice is obvious. He waves a hand at the computers and the blackboards, a space currently empty of anyone. “That’s his side.” Then he turns to the other half, the side with body pieces suspended in yellowish fluid and greying machines set atop benches. There’s an upright piano shoved against a wall and a few poorly folded pieces of origami on top. “This is our side. The cool side,” he winks.

“You can show him around in the morning,” chides Natalie. “He’s probably wanting to go to sleep.”

“Oh, I don’t sleep much at night. I’m nocturnal by nature.” Newton grins.

“Then you’ll be spending a lot of time with _him_.” James makes a face. “I hope you have thick skin.”

“Don’t,” Natalie chides. She turns to Newton. “He’s really not that bad.”

“He’s _awful_ ,” James continues. “I’m glad he works at night. I’d hate to share a lab with him all the time.”

“He’s really not that bad,” Natalie assures Newton. “He’s just particular.”

“If we’re in the lab with him we aren’t allowed to talk. Sometimes he tells us off for breathing.”

Newton chuckles nervously. “I play music pretty loud.”

“Give it up,” James advises. “He won’t stand for that.”

“He has classical music. Or nature music. Our rooms are only through that door but at least the walls are thick. He really is an old dear,” says Natalie, to James.

“He’s an asshole,” James insists.

“Sorry, who are we talking about?”

“Doctor Gottlieb,” they say, together.

“I know the name. He’s not biology, is he?”

“No, thank god,” James sighs. “He does most of his work with J-Tech but his lab is here.”

“He practically built the jaegers,” Natalie explains. “He’s a genius.”

“Still an asshole.”

“Right,” says Newton, deciding that he’ll deal with asshole-genius later, because kaiju livers are far more important than the finicky habits of any human.

James claps his hands in glee and leads them through a jumbled maze of desks and samples. “Natalie’s done some prelim work, but then we found out you were coming and thought it could be a good welcome present.”

The liver sits quiet within the large container. Newton feels tingly just looking up at it. “Who’s is it?”

“Knifehead.”

Newton sighs happily. “Yes,” he says. “Cool. Cool cool cool.”

He spends a little time getting them to bring him up to date on their work, but when it’s quiet clear that it’s several hours past their bedtime he says they should leave him to it.

“Your room!” cries Natalie. “Come on, I’ll show you. We’ve got a little kitchen. There’s a few rooms free, so you can pick whichever.” They meander back out through the samples to get Newton’s bags, and go through the door at the back of the lab to reach the kitchen. There’s a man in there, hunched over a counter.

“Kettle’s just boiled,” he says, turning with a dripping teabag in one hand to throw into the bin.

They stare at each other. Newton breaks first. “Siegfried!” he yells. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“It’s Doctor Gottlieb,” says Hermann, limping to the bin with the tea bag.

“Yeah, man,” Newton dismisses. “How’ve you been? Still at Cambridge?”

“Obviously not. What are you doing here?”

“I work here now.”

Hermann looks at Natalie. “This is the new biologist?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Yes. I refuse to work with this preposterous creature,” says Hermann, and Newton refuses to recoil.

“Dude, check a mirror sometime.” He smirks, proud of his joke. “Think I want to be in the same room as you and your hair?”

“You can’t be here,” says Hermann. “I’m here.”

“I already asked for Sydney. They said no. I’m here to stay. Anyway, I was just on a plane for thirty-six hours. No way am I transferring. You transfer.”

“I was here first,” snaps Hermann.

“Look, if I’d known…” says Newton, deflating. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know you were here. It could be like Poland?” He offers a grin.

“I hated Poland,” Hermann growls. He takes his tea and he takes his cane and he pushes past them out into the laboratory.

Newton watches him go.

“I take it you two have met,” says Natalie, gently.

“He threw a chair at me, once,” says Newton, a little wistfully. He sighs. “Show me where his room is. He’ll get mad unless I pick the one furthest from it.”

 

 

The next day begins much the same as Hermann is used to every day beginning: he goes for dinner in the dining room, where he sits quietly and reads the day’s reports over something hot. Then he visits Jon, and after that little necessity has been taken care of he returns to the lab and begins on his work.

After about half an hour of lovely silence Newton wanders in, bleary eyed and a little pale.

“So, dude!” says Newton. He crosses to Hermann’s side of the lab immediately. His voice is far too chipper, and Hermann scowls, which Newton ignores. He doesn’t always ignore Hermann’s scowls, he just seems to rate them on importance and respond accordingly. Apparently Hermann’s expression encourages Newton to drag a chair across the metal floor and sit down awfully close next to Hermann.

“How’s things?” Hermann merely looks at him. “I’m fine, in case you cared. How’s the team? What’re they like?”

Hermann decides to speak. “Passable. Natalie is pleasant enough, I suppose. Ensure James types all reports.”

“Oh? Bad handwriting?”

“He insists on circular dots over his ‘i’s, and far too much punctuation.”

Newton snorts. “You’re having me on.”

“Five exclamation marks is no joking matter.” For some reason James doesn’t insist on such monstrous behaviour in typed reports; perhaps it is too much effort to hold the shift key down for so long.

“How have you lived this long? Honestly, dude, have you not been fucked in, like, a century?”

“Doctor Geiszler -”

“Nah-uh! Newt. Call me Newt. I hate being called doctor.”

Hermann presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek and very seriously considers beating Newton over the head with his keyboard. However, he likes this keyboard. He’s tested all the others in the lab and determined that this one is the best, and he would not lose it in such a childish endeavour.

“Newton,” he bites out. “None of that is any of your business. Your business regarding me is -”

“No!” Newton shouts, launching himself out of his chair and staring down at Hermann. “No! You are not doing that again. You’re not! We might not be friends but we know each other, and I will not pretend like you’re nothing to me.”

“Then you will not bring my sex life into casual conversation,” Hermann grits out. “Now, you will leave me alone. I have work to do and no desire for you breaking my concentration.”

Newton scowls.

“Whatever, dude. You’re an ass.”

Hermann gives him a withering glare and watches him carefully until Newton is back on his side of the laboratory.

He feels a little bad, but he needs to work and loathes company while he works. He likes silence, and he knows from experience that he cannot expect that from Newton, of all people.

But he does feel a little bad, and around midday - well, midway through their working day, which makes it about 2am – he offers, softly, into the silence between them, “this is the first time we’ve been in Asia at the same time.”

“Huh,” says Newton, half in surprise that Hermann is speaking to him. “Fancy that.” Then, about ten minutes later, “It’s a wonder the place hasn’t imploded.”

Hermann chuckles, a very small sound in the expanse of the lab. “There is still time enough for that.”

 

 

 

 

 

The year 1349 is not a particularly enjoyable year, for reasons entirely separate to the fact that they spend it together, in Poland. Their time is split between arguing and ignoring each other in childish retaliation for the last argument they had. They spend fifteen months nineteen days and two hours residing in the same location, and it surprises them both that they left Poland alive.

The year had started on a Thursday, and that was about as good as it got. They’d gone to Poland, run into each other trying to keep warm in the same miserable part of the country. Neither of them were particularly skilled at keeping contact with other people, vampire or otherwise, but 1349 provided them with exceptional circumstances.

They aren’t friends.

They’ve met twice before, both times in Egypt, and they both ended up together in Poland, and they are not friends.

They never intended to be in Poland, either of them. Poland’s cold and miserable and everything is too far away, people and food and technology.

They are old and proud and they do not like company. But circumstances being what they are, they have little choice. Usually it’s easier to live alone and hunt alone, but the fourteen hundreds are awful for everyone.

Newton had been working with what little knowledge science had to determine the cause of the Plague and how to fix it, but had given up in favour of fleeing to someplace with safe food. It’s alarming to watch a person living and happy and the next moment dead, and terrifying to think of touching that blood.

Hermann hunts and Newton keeps watch, or vice versa, and they spend a lot of their time shouting at each other but most importantly they survive.

Hundreds of years later Newton sits in a cafe staring at the pixelated video on his iPhone and doesn’t know if perhaps the run from mortality is over.

 

Vampires do die. They die from stakes to the heart or any other kind of severe physical destruction of the heart. Newton would like to be more precise, but there are remarkably few vampires willing to indulge in that sort of experiment, and vampirism isn’t catching even in higher order primates. Newton’s knowledge is primarily anecdotal and it irritates him beyond belief.

He does know that sunlight’s a killer. It doesn’t so much set them on fire as just make them dead, though fire does make most vampires fairly nervous. That kills, too, but Newton doesn’t consider this particularly interesting given that fire destroys most things.

Brain death is another thing. Newton suspects that any regular overdose of analgesia will do it, but again, who to test it on? Decapitation kills, pneumonia won’t kill, and ingesting the blood of someone with a blood-borne disease will give the vampire the same disease, generally to a lesser extent, but bird flu put more than a few vampires out of business for several months, and everyone heard of vampires dying during the 1300s.

Newton wishes he could study vampires properly, in a controlled laboratory setting with proper equipment and funding. He’s not poor, but scientists have rarely been well paid and Newton’s shopping style is impulsive. He doesn’t have the money to research his own species. Though, as Hermann’s informed him more than once over the years, it’s probably best if no one knows their inner workings. Better to leave the humans believing that it has to be a wooden stake to the heart and a silver coin in the mouth than to reveal that probably a bullet to the head will do the same.

The worst part of ingesting bad blood was that it left you so sick that you’d probably be unable to go find good blood to set you right.

Starvation kills.

That shouldn’t be a surprising fact. Blood’s food and water together and without it anything would die.

Well, except water bears. Water bears don’t make any sense.

 

 

It’s very quickly re-established that nothing they do meshes well, starting with the music. Hermann likes the sounds of the laboratory to be soothing, sounds of nature or classical music. Anything else is ‘ruddy distracting’ and ‘ghastly to the ear’. Newton likes any noise that’s loud and repetitive and makes your ears want to wither and die.

They both need the music but they argue about it constantly. Newton starts waking up early just so he can rush into the lab and plug his ipod in. This wakes up Hermann, who threatens to break the machine with his cane.

He won’t, because these days iPod speakers are nearly as expensive as kaiju entrails, but the yelling is enough that one day Pentecost marches down and informs them in no uncertain terms that they will sort it out. Apparently their lab mates have been complaining.

Neither Newton nor Hermann think that their lab mates’ complaints should be worth much, given that they share the lab for maybe a few hours of the late afternoon or early evening. The main bulk of their work is done away from the humans.

Pentecost sobers them a little. The Marshall is the only one above them in terms of seniority, but he’s a busy man and shouldn’t be dealing with their squabbles. They sort it out.

Newton is allowed music choices on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Hermann has Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays are split midway through their working day, because neither of them take time off. At first Hermann thought this might be some foolish endeavour on Newton’s part to keep up with Hermann, who doesn’t particularly understand weekends because his only hobbies have been mathematics and why, pray tell, does he require time off from what he loves best?

Newton’s different, unfocused and compulsive, and Hermann hates the blathering mutters and the inconsistent changes of topic. Hermann makes the unfair judgement that Newton doesn’t seem the sort to just take weekends, he seems the sort to sleep in and leave the lab early, take a long lunch and leave early on Fridays to find an interesting human to take to bed.

Except, every weekend, Newton is there, and though Newton does start to sleep in a little more he compensates by leaving the lab hours after is properly decent.

Hermann answers the phone one Sunday to find the call is for Newton.

“It’s eleven on a Sunday night,” he says, angry at the interruption to his work. “Why on earth would he be in the laboratory?”

“Where else would I be, dude?” asks Newton, snatching the phone from his hand. “Yeah, hey Tashika. That’s my awful lab partner. Hermann,” he says the name like it’s a gross tissue he needs to get rid of immediately. Though, considering how Newton keeps his half of the lab… “Yeah, that one. Ugh,” he says. He sits down on his chair and spins around in a circle. As he spins around and sees Hermann he grins and winks and keeps on spinning.

Hermann scowls and turns up the music as he returns to his half of the lab.

 

 

 

The fact that Hermann and Newton had a history spreads fast, and turns into all manner of rumours about what, precisely, their relationship was. No one dared breathe a word of this to either scientist, until one Tuesday at breakfast. Newton’s just finished a long day, having woke up mid-afternoon so as to discuss things with the actual diurnal people. He’s been awake for nearly twenty-one hours, and he’s sleepy but wired and is trying to calm down over breakfast.

Alina is the one to break the silence, being the sort of person to point-blank ask rather than try to figure out through gossip and veiled questions.

“Did you and Doctor Gottlieb used to date?”

“Date?” asks Newton in surprise. He shakes his head.

“Sleeping together, then.”

“Her- Doctor Gottlieb doesn’t have sex.” Newton doesn’t know this for certain, but he’s come across Hermann in all manner of interesting situations and not once has there been anyone there with him. Newton doesn’t care, Hermann can do what Hermann wants to do, but he does find it a little sad that as far as he knows there’s been no one at all.

“Yeah he does,” says Alina with confidence. The others nod. “Jon. Sees him a couple times a week. Started nearly as soon as he got here, too,” she continues, glancing at the others for confirmation. They nod again, watching Newton closely.

“That bastard,” says Newton. “Jon, you said?”

Alina smirks. “Yeah. He’s down in mechanics.”

“Is Hermann still up?”

“He was when I got up,” says James.

“I have to go,” says Newton as he shifts on the bench, awkward in his hurry to get out. Alina sits back, satisfied, and raises an eyebrow at the others while Newton rushes off.

“What did I tell you?” she asks smugly. “Must have been a bad break up.”

“Can you imagine anything else between those two?” asks James.

 

There’s no one in the lab when Newton marches in, but he crosses quickly to check the kitchen and then stands in the division between physics and kaiju and says, very loudly, “if anyone’s here you should go away because I’m about to yell at Hermann.”

Satisfied that they’re alone he approaches Hermann, who’s paused in his process of packing up before bed to pull his glasses down his nose and frown at Newton.

“You bastard,” says Newton. “You absolute bastard!”

“Please be more specific,” says Hermann, looking through his glasses to type something into a computer before shutting down the monitor. He pulls his glasses off and tucks them into his top coat pocket, string still around his neck. “It’s been an exceptionally long night and I am very tired.”

“You have a thrall.”

Hermann blinks, just once. “How else do you propose I eat?”

“Pilfer off Medical, like I do,” says Newton. “Duh. Look, get rid of Jon and I’ll -”

“How do you know his name?” asks Hermann, before settling on a more important question: “how well do you think you can hide the appetites of two vampires? This is precisely why I loathe sharing space with our kind. It is dangerous.”

“Dude, I’m good at this. Trust me.”

“Trust you? I would sooner cut off my fingers.”

“Vampires can regenerate extremities so long as it occurs post -” Newton shakes his head at himself. “You are draining the life of that man. What will you do at the end? Kill him? Turn him?” he adds, more incredulous, because he cannot imagine Hermann as a father of any kind.

“I have never turned anyone.”

“A thrall lasts, at best, two years.”

“In the old days, maybe,” Hermann sneers. “A properly cared for thrall can last as many as a dozen, and if one releases them properly they needn’t die at all. Jon is an athlete with no blood defects. He is young, healthy - one might call him an ideal candidate.”

“An ideal candidate going to die far too young. Get rid of him. It’s not been so long that you can’t do that.”

“No,” says Hermann.

“This is not a discussion!” Newton yells. “This is my home too, now, and your thrall puts me at danger. I can source blood because that’s what I do. It’s the twenty-first century, get with the program!”

“And soon you’ll start producing synthetic blood and we’ll all come out?” Hermann shouts back.

“Maybe! Who knows! Just get rid of him!”

 

That night Newton is already up when Hermann gets up, and Hermann comes into the laboratory wrapping a scarf around his neck and almost shivering.

“Going to see Jon?” asks Alina, slyly glancing at Newton.

“No,” says Hermann stiffly. “I am not seeing Jon anymore.”

 

“See?” says Alina to James as they both go down the hallway to their rooms.

“I want to know what Newton said.”

“To have been a fly on the wall,” Alina agrees.

When the lab is cold and silent, the Shatterdome settling into sleep around them, Newton throws a packet of blood onto Hermann’s desk. It lands with a wet clump, and Hermann starts at the noise.

“What,” he says, wrinkling his nose, “is that?”

“Blood. You look like shit,” says Newton, flatly, and Hermann feels a bit peaky even if he cannot find a mirror to check Newton’s assessment for himself.

“How can I trust this?”

“Yes, I waited until now to kill you.” Newton rolls his eyes. “I know my source is reliable and clean and all that.”

“I do not take from merely anyone who crosses my path,” snaps Hermann. The blood is slipping around inside the plastic.

“Is this an issue with traditions? Like, do you still do it the old way and drinking from a cup is just weird?”

Hermann shoots him such a look that Newton, who never gives in to him, steps back a few paces with his hands automatically raised. Hermann sneers at that. _This_ is the sort of creature humanity has feared and loved for so many years.

He looks at the blood. “It has Medical stamped on it.”

“Yeah,” Newton shrugs and looks away, a little embarrassed. “I did tell you. Just - just drink the fucking stuff. I’ll warm it up if you like.” He reaches out a hand and Hermann slaps it with his cane.

He uses his penknife to cut a hole and he pours it into an old teacup, where the tea’s congealed in the bottom. For all he’ll rag on Newton, the PPDC has lowered his living standards considerably. He drinks, and he feels better, and he absolutely refuses to admit that.

He doesn’t like having other vampires near him. He doesn’t like having his space shared by anyone.

But. He cannot change what is. He cannot (would not, has no desire to) change what he is. And Newton is here.

There could be worse things.

 

 

1248\. Egypt, again. Thursday. It’s hot enough that Hermann hasn’t eaten in three days and doesn’t feel cold. Vampires are a bit like lizards in that regard.

He’s planning on returning to West Asia, tired already of the lessons he’s learned in Egypt. He likes maths; he misses maths. He’s lingering outdoors in the light of a yellow-brown lamp, and Newton’s walking past.

“Siegfried!” Newton says.

Hermann lifts his head from his writing without meaning to; the name is German, and German names are more than merely uncommon here. Newton grins at him, squinting a little. Eyeglasses are still a few decades from being invented, and they both have a few issues there that they’ve been distracted from finding a solution to.

It’s their second meeting and Hermann is even less pleased at seeing him. At being approached by him.

“The gall of you,” he says, the dialect of German that he knows Newton speaks. The language is unfamiliar on his tongue. He only speaks it at home or with his father, and he has seen neither for centuries. “I thought we agreed to never see each other again.”

“Yet here I am, and here you are. If you like, you can close your eyes until I go away and we can pretend we can forget this ever happened.” Newton’s about three metres away, and Hermann can feel him. He’s running hot, heart moving blood fast around his body. Hermann’s counting the beats without intending to. It’s a way to try to keep his mind clear of all the other senses.

“I asked around about you,” says Newton, when Hermann does not speak. “Mathematician. Everyone thinks you’re very strange.”

“And I’m sure they all believe you’re just a normal white man here to have sex with anything that moves.”

Newton peers over at what Hermann’s been writing. “What’s that?”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“Tell, me, please?”

Hermann’s expression does not change.

Newton opens his mouth but takes a rare moment to consider what he’s about to say and changes his question. “Are you one of those vampires who treats people as blood bags? Cos I don’t wanna be friends with a vampire like that.”

Hermann grinds his teeth. “I’m not your friend. And that’s a strange question, given what you seemed about to engage in last I saw you.”

“A series of orgasms?” smirks Newton.

“Please go away,” Hermann snaps, returning to his writing. After a few scratches he looks up to see Newton still there. He sighs, laboriously. “What do you want?”

“To say hi. I don’t meet a lot of our kind who don’t immediately try to kill me.”

“It is the natural instinct, rather emphasised where you are concerned.”

“Seriously, dude, what are you doing?” asks Newton. He reaches for the board and Hermann pulls it away, and they’re interrupted by the last call to prayer for the night. Newton takes the opportunity to steal the board. He steps back to his three-metre boundary, his squint relaxing as he reads the numbers.

“Algebra,” he says. “Impressive.”

“I am calculating the relative difference between the time of prayers here to areas in West Asia,” Hermann explains.

“Oh, because of the movement of the earth.”

Hermann gives him a look that clearly indicates he has no idea why Newton thought to waste breath on those words. Though he is, perhaps, a little impressed that Newton knows such things. “Obviously. Now, will you go away?”

Newton tosses the board onto the table. “See you round, Siegfried.”

“My name is not -” He bites back his irritation and watches suspiciously until he’s certain Newton is properly gone.

 

 

 

Hermann is half-dressed and leaning over a cluster of metal that Mako’s asked him to go over. It’s like homework, except this is both her hobby and her study. She’d asked him, all nervous and polite, if he could go over it.

Newton knocks on the door, and Hermann waves indistinctly at it, and then realises that’s not going to open the door and moves the four feet to open it. Newton grins up at him, and Newton is wearing a waistcoat.

He’s wearing a waistcoat but the effect is ruined by the fact that it’s covered in zips. His tie is official enough and done with an actual proper half-Windsor knot tight around at his throat, but his sleeves are rolled up and the lines of his tattoo are firmly in place. He wonders if it was designed all at once or merely very congruently added to as more kaiju came.

Hermann stares at him while Newton takes him in with one quick glance and opens his mouth to shriek, “You’re not ready! We’ve gotta be down in the Jaeger hanger like,” he wrangles a moment with his pockets, and only just manages to squeeze his phone out. The screen’s cracked, and Hermann can only think, of course, so bloody typical, before he remembers that he’s pretending as though Newton is a foreign entity to him, that they’ve never met before and they most certainly are not working together now. A cracked iPhone screen is neither interesting nor surprising, because he does not know Newton and does not know that he is hopelessly reckless with all his things.

“Dude, we gotta be there right now! You’re not even dressed.” He pushes his way into Hermann’s room and frowns at the clothes neatly folded and waiting on the bed. He looks back at Hermann. “That sweater? What? You wanna look like a history professor?”

They’ve got an interview, and with each of them being the heads of their own tiny departments, they’re the lucky ones who get to go. Newton woke up early and showered especially for this; he’s drunk some blood and now passes a mug over to Hermann.

“Drink that - you warm enough? Where do you keep your sweaters?” He goes to the small closet. “There has to be something in here that’ll make you look less than a hundred years old.”

“Go on without me,” says Hermann. He’d welcome any excuse to avoid the affair.

“Come on, dude, this is how we get money!” He’s rooting around in the closet, messing up everything, and he takes out a dark grey knitted vest and holds it up, critically. “This’ll work, I guess… I’ve never seen this before.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed,” says Hermann, giving in and doing up his top button. Newton throws him the vest and he does not catch it; it lands behind him on top of Mako’s work. It’s cashmere, expensive and old and not worn as often as it should be, given the money he spent on it. But he’s probably got half a dozen like it - Newton doesn’t need to know this, but Hermann’s wardrobe is far more extensive than it really should be. It’s only limited now because he didn’t know how much to bring with him to the Shatterdome. If he’s here for more than a few months perhaps he’ll start getting things sent over to him from Munich, where most of it is currently kept.

He carefully picks the vest up and pulls it on, glaring at Newton a little as he does so. Then he straightens his his collar. It’s difficult without a mirror, but he’s had practice and he is never, ever going to ask Newton for help.

Newton is watching him critically, ignoring the mess he’s made with Hermann’s closet.

“What’s the problem?” he asks. “You’ve done interviews before.”

“Obviously.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

Hermann has no desire to explain that he doesn’t want to have his name appear in any article beside Newton. It’s not a matter of dislike for the man - it’s quickly become apparent to even him, and he is fully aware of his own emotional inabilities, that his emotions towards Newton are far less negative than he prefers to let on. It’s a matter of preservation.

Two vampires should not be so close in proximity to each other.

It’s… vile.

If he were Newton he would say he is a cat pushed out of a warm space, but he is not Newton, and the fact that he knows what sort of monstrous metaphor the other vampire would use is testimony enough that they should not do this interview together.

They need to stop doing things together.

At least his vest is nothing like the shiny blue waistcoat that Newton is wearing, it with a silver back and sparkling buttons. Newton’s pants are far too tight and his boots far too large, and he looks like a grotesque mix between the punks of the seventies and - well, Hermann doesn’t really know but still, it is horribly disagreeable.

He also, appallingly, secretly, thinks it suits Newton.

“There are far more important things to occupy my time than this,” is all he says.

“Chin up,” Newton responds. “Maybe someone will give us the money to fix JAX-I.”

It’s already been established that JAX-I is the most useless machine in the entire Shatterdome; it’s also absolutely vital to Hermann’s work. One has to turn it on at least twenty minutes before one wants to use it, and even then keeping it going requires constant attention and the occasional whack with his cane. Unfortunately, short of taking over J-Tech’s machinery he has nothing better through which to run his calculations, and even in 2020 the budget is low and purchasing JAX-IIc would cut into it too much.

“Smile without fangs, let me do the talking, and next week we’ll have a super calculator just for you. We’ll even name it after you. _Das Kleiner Siegfried_.”

“We will not,” snarls Hermann, cane in hand and striding out.

Hermann wants to ask why on earth Newton seems so interested in befriending him - has always seemed so interested – but he doesn’t.

If he has to do this, he might as well do it now and get it over and done with.

(They don’t get JAX-IIc. They do get some lovely photos of them sitting together as though they are meant to be beside each other. Hermann keeps them in a drawer and later, months later, he has them scanned to keep and pins copies on the wall by his blackboards. Newton would comment, but he’s got them kept in the pages of one of his favourite manga.)

 

 

 

“Fuckity fuck,” mutters Newton. Hermann is ignoring him in that way he has, where it’s so obvious that Hermann’s ignoring Newton that he might as well have installed a neon sign over his blackboards.

Newton makes a face at him, which Hermann, his back turned and hunched over a computer, does not see.

He tries for some Old Norse, just for the hell of it. “Huglausi inoborna kamphundr,” he says to the section of kaiju limb in front of him.

“Figured out their diet?” asks Hermann conversationally, not looking up.

There’s no music on, which is a little weird. Hermann likes music, or at least, he likes noise. Newton didn’t need the others warning him of this to know. It’s a vampire thing: either dead silence or loud noises to block out the incidental sounds that the world makes.

Newton decides his kaiju can stew a few moments while he finds his iPod and finds the speaker and plugs it in. He nods his head to the music and grins over at Hermann’s back.

“SomeBODY once told me,” he shouts, and Hermann whirls to glare at him. As Newton keeps singing Hermann snorts and shakes his head.

“You have not diminished in your ridiculousness.”

“I have to go through all of this,” Newton waves his hand at the guts, “just because Jessica Tashika, blast her cotton little socks, figured out a theory but I don’t know if it’s true and if it is true then hey! Better killing methods. But I don’t know if it’s true because I can’t find the bloody cells she was on about and maybe she was lying and maybe she wasn’t, and if we had some more money I could hire someone but I can’t and Natalie’s got her own stuff and James doesn’t know enough so I’m left with this bacraut.”

“Then do it quietly,” snaps Hermann, ever the unsympathetic.

Newton sighs, ruffles his hair, smooths it out, cleans his glasses, picks at a spot on his jaw, and eventually gets back to work.

It takes all day, and then a while longer to prep the cells onto slides and properly examine them, then a further week for tests and another month for more tests, but by the end he’s calling down to the Jaeger labs and telling them to add another poison to their repertoire, because these bad bitches can be paralyzed.

“I mean, not for long,” he continues into the phone, and Hermann glares at him out of habit.

Newton’s been here three months and already Hermann has _habits_ regarding him.

It’s disgusting. He will not admit to liking it.

“But, like, it’ll slow ‘em down. And that’s enough. If we can get this into their blood - a needle’s a bit too delicate so probably hit ‘em with something sharp and then throw a pot of this at them - then that’s long enough to slow ‘em down and get a hit in. Look, I’ll send you an email.”

Newton hangs up.

“You detangled their nervous system?” questions Hermann.

“Nah. Without getting something intact or even better, alive -”

“You do understand you are talking about creatures that weigh more than two thousand tonnes?” It’s a serious question; Hermann doesn’t yet understand the coherent tattoo spanning Newton’s arms and peaking out his collar. “They are not pets.”

“Duh, I’m not an idiot,” says Newton. “But having something fresh enough that it’s not covered in preservatives would help. I have no idea how they’re wired. I don’t have anything close to a complete picture of their anatomy. Their muscles aren’t the same as ours. Ours are all fibrous. They’re not close to the same - oh they’re amazing,” he sighs. “They’re beautiful and different and all new, and I feel like Darwin or Newton is here and everything’s new and brilliant again. And if there’s these aliens there’s other aliens, and I can find those and,” he suddenly can’t see.

“Oh, fuck,” he says. He grabs the edge of the desk and leans over his lap, head between his knees and gasping for breath.

He knows he’s blinking but it’s not working. He can’t – focus. What – how does he focus?

Hermann’s at his side, hands on his shoulders.

He’ll focus on that.

“What do I do?” asks Hermann, all business-like, no panic in his voice.

Bastard, thinks Newton.

“Oskilgetinn,” he says.

“English,” Hermann commands. He sounds horribly calm while Newton’s fairly certain his brain is about to explode and pour out his ears.

No - not a good thought. Not a good thought at all. He closes his eyes and focuses on nothing. He thinks his ribs are crushing him.

“Bastard,” he repeats. “Water.” Hermann’s hands leave him and without that support he’s not sure he can remain on the chair.

Unsteadily he lets himself slip off with as much control as he can muster, and on the floor he lets himself sprawl out.

Hermann’s back beside him with a glass of water, and he sips at it. His hands are shaking.

“Hell,” he says, when he thinks he can speak. “Haven’t had one of those for a while.”

“Panic attack?” asks Hermann, who is, bizarrely, sitting on the floor beside him with his legs stretched out. Newton didn’t think the man could ever looked as relaxed as he does right this moment.

If Newton rotates his ankle by just a few degrees their shoes would touch.

“Yeah. Sorry,” he adds, because it’s idiotic. It’s idiotic that this still happens, that he still panics over nothing and he still forgets how to breathe (the process of drawing air into lungs is important for speech, and vampires are not so changed from humans that their bodies no longer require at least a little oxygen.)

Hermann’s response is surprisingly sharp.

“I don’t apologise for my leg. You don’t apologise for your… you.”

Newton snorts, but shifts his leg so their toes tap together in thanks.

“They’re just,” he jiggles his leg, the one not closest to Hermann. “They’re so much. They’re so much and we know nothing about them. Are they intelligent creatures or are they controlled? Random beasts just hunting for prey or is there a plan? Are they trying to take us out? Here for the water _Battle: LA_ style?” Hermann raises an eyebrow at him, and Newton clamps his hand over his knee so that his leg stops moving. “Terrible movie,” he explains. “Never watch it with me. I have a lot of theories and I’m pretty sure I’m just making shit up.”

“Of course you are,” says Hermann patiently. Knowingly. As though they are friends.

And yet.

Newton’s never known anyone as long as he’s known Hermann. Never liked anyone as long as he’s liked Hermann, at least, even if that like is tenuous and caustic, even if Hermann seems only to tolerate him.

But Hermann the Tolerator is sitting on the floor beside him, and JAX-I is probably about to have a hernia over the lack of attention and turn itself off. Hermann has work to do and he is sitting on the floor beside Newton.

“Making shit up is most of what you do.”

Newton laughs, the incredulity of Hermann swearing like that right now right here sitting on the floor next to him too much for his whole state of being. He laughs, and he bends his head to his knees and feels where the tightness of his pants cuts into his stomach, and he shakes his head and straightens up.

“But why do they attack if they just want water?” He presses, pushing to find how much Hermann will indulge him. “Why do they want water?” Newton clutches at his head and moans in mock-misery and – bizarre! Hermann chuckles, lips parting in a slight smile as he does so. “And why are the kaiju here? We’re offering a piss-poor attempt at defense. I like Godzilla better,” he grumbles. “I understand Godzilla.”

“Is there anything I can do?” asks Hermann, again.

“Nah. Well.” Newton considers, and shakes his head. “It’s just, being in new places. I don’t like travelling. It’s the worry about blood. And sun. And trying not to be found. I mean, it’s exhausting. I suppose it would be worse if they knew about us,” he adds. He’s silent a moment. “I’d lived in New York for seventy years before Trespasser.”

“I saw you in France in the eighties.”

“Mm,” says Newton, swallowing some more water. His movements are swift, jerky. “Just visiting. Mother was there. She liked Europe.”

“...Past tense,” says Hermann, carefully.

Newton takes a moment before he speaks.

“Kaiju bombs. Hundun.” She was too old to die in such a fashion, too old to die at all.

Hermann surprises himself by feeling genuine sadness, wanting to put his arm over Newton’s shoulders and comfort him. “I’m sorry.”

Newton shrugs, as though it doesn’t hurt any more. Hermann looks down at Newton’s arms, where he’s rolled up his sleeves to show off the tattoos. He has a lot of questions about them, but decides they can stay unspoken for now.

“Do you need a hand up?” he asks, as he himself struggles upright. Newton accepts the offer, and it’s a shock to them both at the coldness of the other’s hand, the feel of the other’s skin. They both spring away from each other and offer wry smiles, each a little embarrassed.

“I should, uh, get back to work,” says Newton. “Thanks for the, uh, water.”

“Not a problem,” says Hermann stiffly.

 

 

 

 

 

Newton’s been at the Shatterdome for five months and Hermann for six, and Hermann wakes at 6:00 without really needing his alarm to prompt him. It’s just as dinner is being served.

He dresses without showering, because the water pressure at this hour is, quite frankly, bullshit, and he needs it hot and hard so he leaves it for the middle of the afternoon (early morning). He dresses in his complicated array of clothes and goes to have breakfast (dinner).

The lab is empty when he walks through it, but Newton’s been here for five months now and he’s never awake this early (late). Probably the idiot stayed up till midmorning (late afternoon), and Hermann has no sympathy for him.

When it’s cold he doesn’t like to eat human food. Unlike in humans metabolising doesn’t warm him up, it only steals energy he needs. There’s soup that’s steaming and he takes a bowl of that and a bit of bread, and he sits down at his usual table.

His usual table is the Drifter table.

He’s noticed that anyone who’s Drifted with anyone else is not particularly good at communicating with anyone who is not their Drifting partner. The Weis sit with a few of their techies around them, but the techies are talking to each other and the triplets aren’t really talking at all. The Kaidonovskys are visiting while J-Tech-plus-Hermann do some modifications to their software, and they’re sitting quietly together, alone.

Natalie and the other scientists sit across the way, and Hermann does not like to sit with them. He does not feel above them, he feels unwanted by them.

Hermann likes the Drifter table, because there is precisely no reason for anyone at this long table to talk to him. He sits at the end with his soup warming his hands and cringes down.

The reason for the music in the lab is simple: he can hear everything. He can hear the heartbeats of everyone in this room like the constant chattering of birds. He can hear the clank of food-tray on metal table-top, he can hear footfalls and whispered conversation, he can hear the sound of the doors at the far end of the hall opening and closing and each time its open he can hear the footsteps beyond, the conversations, the existence of humans.

It’s quieter today, and he hears comments of some illness. He tugs his cuffs further down his wrists, as though that half-inch extra will be the difference between his getting ill and not. As though vampire physiology works that way.

He hears Tendo long before the man sits down opposite him and launches into a series of ideas about Cherno Alpha’s fixes. Hermann drinks his soup fast before it gets cold and enjoys the company, though he offers little to the conversation.

“Where’s Newt?” asks Tendo, when he’s done talking about code.

“Sleeping, I presume,” says Hermann.

“Not sick? I saw him at lunch, he looked a bit out of it.”

“Doctor Geiszler has not been sick a day in his life,” Hermann says, severely. The thought is preposterous. Newton is haphazard, careless, yes, but he’s not so much of an idiot that he’d take blood from someone sick.

“At least you keep to opposite sides of the lab,” says Tendo. “Don’t need you getting ill, either.” He takes Hermann’s empty soup-bowl away with his tray, leaving Hermann to get himself up and back to the lab.

It’s blissfully silent and he slots his iPod into the player and sets it to shuffle. Rain, today. He likes the idea of weather even if he has never been much for sitting outside. He likes this modern era where there are no reasons to go outside, ever, and even most of the humans here never see the sun.

With rain tumbling down imagined windows and thunder beginning in the background the sound of his cane on the floor is muffled. He goes into the kitchenette to set the kettle boiling, and returns to the lab to examine yesterday’s work. Sometimes he leaves notes to himself to remember where he left off; last night he did not, so he figures it out until the kettle clicks off.

He goes, makes his tea, and lets it warm him. He’ll get his food when Newton wakes. Natalie walks through with Nicolas, laughing loudly, and bids him goodnight. Nicolas doesn’t meet his eye and hurries away. He’s an absolutely useless assistant, and Hermann’s been hearing rumours of budget cuts without concern for who he’ll choose to let go.

He begins on his work, a mix between chalkboards scrawled over with mathematics and his own mix of languages and symbols, and the holograms and computer screens. Newton’s arguments aside, Hermann’s the more modern of the two. Newton’s microscope uses only light; there’s an electron microscope in Japan, but Newton has to fly all his samples over and wait and hope they get the right pictures. Newton uses the same knives they were using two thousand years ago, while some of the equations Hermann is now meshing together did not exist six months ago. Some of them did not exist six weeks ago.

And the hologram is divine. He loves it. He’s never loved a machine more. He has no idea how he existed prior and he’s excited for the kaiju problem to be solved so the world can get on with making new and better technology.

The weather’s clicked over to Tchaikovsky and Hermann’s had two cups of tea when he decides it’s a bit strange Newton hasn’t arrived. If nothing else he needs the man there so they can shout at each other for half an hour or so in the hopes that the aggression will spark some fantastic leap of the imagination.

Loathe as he is to admit it, most of his achievements in the last eight hundred years have been when Newton’s around. His knowledge of what Newton has achieved over the centuries is limited by what names Newton’s gone by, but what Hermann can pick indicates that he, too, does better when Hermann is present.

It’s a thought he treats unkindly and shuts away in the back of his mind as soon as it is formed.

And Newton is still not awake so he goes, with the discourteous approach of making as much noise as possible, to see if Newton is planning on spending the whole day in bed.

At the very least, he needs some blood and the blood is in Newton’s room.

Hermann can hear it before the door is open. The deathly silence. The harsh breathing.

Newton shifts in bed to hide his eyes from the light of the doorway. “Go ‘way,” he mutters.

“You’re sick,” Hermann surmises. He’s suddenly angry. “Why the bloody hell did you get yourself sick for?”

Newton rolls onto his back and looks up at Hermann. He looks pathetic. “‘Parently they’re doing blood tests on someone with the flu?”

“You’re an idiot,” Hermann reminds him.

“Let me die in peace,” mutters Newton. His eyes slide to the side of Hermann, and focuses on something in midair. “I think I’m hallucinating. Or is there a peach? It’s floating. I haven’t had a peach in ages.”

“You’re hallucinating,” Hermann snaps. He uses his cane to slap away Newton’s hand before he can grab hold of empty air. He stalks across the room and opens the fridge. “Why is this empty?”

“Drank it.” Newton grins, pleased as punch, and then closes his eyes.

Hermann frowns at him. “What medication works on us?”

“Vampires can’t die from the flu,” says Newton. His voice is muffled by the pillow, because he’s decided to lie on his stomach. His shirt is sticking to his back. A sweating vampire is never a good sign. Their body temperature is never meant to reach so high that they feel the need to sweat.

“You’ll be out of commission for at least a week, if not longer, and we do not have time for that. I have calculated that the next kaiju attack will be in one month’s time and we need you up for that.”

“I’ll be fine by then,” mutters Newton.

“We have no way of knowing that.” Newton does not respond. “Just stay there,” Hermann huffs. He stomps out of Newton’s bedroom and back into the laboratory.

He’s already made his decision, and he doesn’t try to think it through. The idea is in his head so he immediately launches into action.

He doesn’t like Newton’s side. In the short while he’s been here he’s turned it into a horrible mess, and Hermann crinkles his nose at it. He finds what he’s looking for after about ten minutes searching. Apparently keeping needles in the drawer marked ‘needles’ is impossible, and everything else is scattered to the winds.

He takes off his jacket and his sweater and rolls up his sleeve, straps the tourniquet around his arm and pumps his fist to keep the blood moving. It’s been a while since he did this to himself, and it takes several stabs before the blood flows down the tube. He sighs, and watches it. It moves slowly, and it’s perhaps fifteen minutes before the bag is even close to full. If he were a human making a donation he’d have been told to come back when he’s had more fluids, but he’s not, so he leans back in his chair and he waits.

 

Newton is not where he left him. Newton is very much not where Hermann left him.

Hermann left him face down in a darkened room, with all his clothes on and the covers over him. Now, the light is on, Newton is naked, and Newton is very enthusiastically thrusting a dildo inside of him with one hand around his cock.

Hermann nearly drops the blood in shock, and when he sees the shape of the thing Newton’s got pushing into him he gasps and stares.

“What the devil are you doing?” he manages. He doesn’t sound nearly as indignant as he would like. “Why are you subjecting me to this?”

“Didn’t know you’d be back, dude,” says Newton. “Can you give me a hand?”

“No, I will not ‘give you a hand’,” snaps Hermann. “You’re terribly ill, you need to be resting.”

“Orgasms,” he breaks off to gasp, and Hermann’s eyes widen. This is entirely too much and he has no desire to be here. “They’re good for you. Endorphins and,” here, he moans, fist working harder, “they can help you.” His eyes flutter open and he looks at Hermann, meets his eyes exactly and this is preposterous, that Newton is looking at him like that while he’s doing this.

And he’s ill. He shouldn’t be doing this at all.

Hermann remembers the blood in his hand and he passes it over. Newton takes his hand from the bed where he’s steadying himself and bites into the bag without preamble. Hermann can’t take his eyes away. Newton slips on his toes and falls down onto the dildo and there’s blood running over his chin and his hand is moving fast over himself. Hermann should leave. Hermann should definitely leave.

He is rooted to the spot, even as Newton swallows his blood and gasps and comes and keeps drinking. He topples over with the dildo shaped like a tentacle still in his ass and the bag still against his lips.

“Fuck,” he says, when the bag is empty except the small particles that cling to the inside of the torn plastic. He shifts and pulls the dildo out, tosses it away and shifts so that he’s sprawled out on the bed. “Jesus Christ that’s good. I feel amazing,” he sighs. He notices that Hermann is still in the room. “Where did you get that? It tasted amazing. I feel fanfuckingtastic.”

Hermann thinks now is an excellent time to retreat, but Newton must read something in his face because before Hermann can reach the door Newton is up from the bed and standing in front of him. His cock is still half-hard and slick with lube, and the rest of him is tattooed and flushed with sweat.

Newton grabs Hermann’s arm by the crook of his elbow and presses his fingertips in right where the needle had been only a few minutes before.

“It was yours. You gave me your blood.”

“We don’t need to discuss this,” says Hermann faintly.

“Fucking hell we don’t! You gave me your blood! I haven’t drunk vampire blood since I was turned,” he hisses, face close to Hermann’s.

“You needed it. Anyway,” he continues, “you took it.”

“Like hell! You gave it to me, I didn’t think, oh obviously he’s giving me his own fucking stuff.” Not to mention he’s sick and not exactly in the best frame of mind to be making decisions even if he were offered the choice. Hermann turns his face away and Newton grabs his chin and yanks him back. Forces them to stare eye-to-eye. “Jesus, Herm. You don’t just do that!”

“I’m not sorry,” says Hermann.

“Course you’re not! You can feel me, now!” Newton’s yelling, naked and close up against Hermann. The open door is behind him but he can’t find it within himself to move. “I’m in your fucking head, that’s how it works.”

“It fades,” Hermann protests, but he knows it’s a weak argument.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” yells Newton. He lets go of Hermann’s face. “Get out. Get out of here. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Hermann stumbles backwards at the press of fingers to his sternum, and watches as the heavy metal door is slammed in his face.

What was he thinking? Nothing bad, not at all. He knows about blood-sharing between vampires and he knows its benefits: vampire blood heals, vampire blood turns you on and gets you off. Vampire blood is something you share between -

Hermann hadn’t thought twice about offering his own. He hadn’t even thought once. It was just his automatic instinct: Newton was sick and Hermann could make him feel better.

He turns away from Newton’s door, trying desperately to shut down those thoughts. He doesn’t like vampires, and he doesn’t like Newton, and this is preposterous. He goes to his blackboard and stubbornly continues on with his work.

Newton’s right. Hermann can feel him. The connection will fade but Hermann’s never done this before and he doesn’t know when it will fade. He tries to ignore it.

It is not a successful endeavour.

 

 

While Hermann wakes with the shrill chirp of his 6:00 alarm, Newton wakes up slowly half an hour later feeling as though his brain were transmorgrified into an elephant. He presses his hand to his forehead and groans, loudly.

He hasn’t been sick in ever. He’s seen sick vampires - hell, he’s seen sick people, and he has no desire for that.

He tries to remember what he last ate. Nothing serious. Nothing with one of those diseases that’s really difficult to kick, like cancer or AIDS. He was hungry and Hermann drank the last of the blood, so this was all that was left in the fridge.

So really this is Hermann’s fault.

He decides to tell him that, as soon as he gets out of bed.

He tries to get out of bed.

Maybe he’ll tell Hermann as soon as he’s had a nice long nap.

 

 

 

He’s woken up by a cane to his shoulder and he grunts angrily. “Your fault,” he says, which is the only thought he’s had in his mind for that last few hours in his fevered sleep. He’s been tossing and turning and he feels like he’s on fire. He’s never been on fire, he has that same, very reasonable fear that all vampires have of any flame larger than a candle, but this is probably what being on fire feels like.

“It’s your fault go ‘way,” he says. He rolls onto his back and sees a peach. He’s not eaten a peach since long before the kaiju war, but he really loves them.

He tries to grab the peach and Hermann slaps his hand away with the cane. The pain is sharp and awful and he glares up at Hermann. Hermann’s face is fuzzy, as though he’s looking at him through water. He blinks, trying to clear his vision.

 

 

The door is closed. He’s not sure how long the door has been closed for but he’s hot all over and he can’t get comfortable so he pulls off his shirt and struggles out of his jeans and lies panting on the bed. The air isn’t cold enough and his hands flop down onto his stomach, one close to his hip, and he has an idea. A very good idea.

He puts his hand on his cock and rubs it slowly, groaning as the pleasure overtakes the pain for just a half second. He closes his eyes and focuses on that sensation, but closing his eyes makes him feel like he’s spinning through air. He opens them to blackness and struggles up. The light fizzes as it flickers on and it burns his eyes so that he recoils, bare back hitting the cold flat metal of the wall.

A moment later he’s ignoring that entire ordeal for the sensation of his palm running smooth over the length of him, fingers loose and the dry drag of his skin becoming everything he cares about.

He stands by the door, his limbs not yet having processed the command to move back to the bed. He’s rubbing himself and leaning a little against the cold metal of the door.

His hand isn’t enough, and his eyes fall on his drawer.

He discovered that he’s into tentacles a long time ago. Not in Japan, if that was your question. He was in South Africa, actually, just wondering about life and sex and all the things between, thinking, as one does, about deep-sea creatures and how they copulate. It’s been a question in Newton’s mind for hundreds of years, if not anyone else’s, about how much pleasure animals get from sex.

So he was thinking about sex, and pleasure, and tentacles, and that’s where it started, and now he’s here in the Hong Kong Shatterdome with a drawer of choices.

He opens the drawer and grabs the pinky-orange one (though his hand does hover over the blue-grey, which is meant to be dragon but Newton has always thought of just ‘other-worldly’, and though it’s here he can never quite bring himself to touch it in a world where kaiju are real).

He finds his lube and uses enough that it’s dribbling over him cold and slimy, and he braces himself while he eases the toy fully into him in one smooth go. He’s feeling weak and heady and each time he closes his eyes he feels like he’s in a boat on the ocean or perhaps he is the ocean, waves going up and down and huge, filling up all the space in the world.

His hand is around his cock and he’s bracing himself on an elbow, awkwardly angling himself so that he can reach all the right spots…

Hermann comes in.

Hermann comes in and he ruins everything.

 

 

 

 

 

They don’t talk for seven days.

This is amazing, and terrible, because they really do need to talk. But they don’t talk, at least, Newton doesn’t verbally communicate with Hermann and Hermann, feeling punished, does not attempt to talk.

Everyone in the lab steps carefully around them. Tammy whispers _lover’s tiff_ to James, and James giggles. Newton lets his sleeping habits slip, so he wakes closer to midnight.

It takes four days for the connection to fade enough that he can ignore it easily, and by the start of the seven days it’s no more than a lingering echo, like the memory of a dream.

Newton takes over the music. Newton makes sure the kettle is never just boiled and that it always needs filling up. Newton takes the last of the coffee and doesn’t remember to ask Ling down in the kitchen for more teabags.

But worst of all, Newton doesn’t talk.

Newton always talks. Newton never shuts up, muttering even to himself through the important discoveries and those moments of intense focus where surely, surely he would close that mouth and concentrate.

Hermann keeps looking over at him and then quickly glancing away whenever Newton looks up.

But he won’t break the silence. He’s already overstepped his bounds enough.

It takes seven days for Newton to open his mouth.

“You’re an idiot,” Newton says. Hermann’s lost in the shape of the hologram, the bright blue blurring his vision so he cannot focus on Newton for a moment. He blinks, and pulls off his glasses. “You’re an idiot and I hate you.”

“I am sorry,” says Hermann. If Newton had done that to him he’d probably have shot him.

In the knee, but it still would have hurt. But he’s not entirely apologetic, because it worked.

“That’s not something you can apologise for! It’s not something you do with just anyone!”

“You’re not just anyone,” Hermann yells back.

“Did you even think about it?”

“No!” says Hermann. “I didn’t!”

“You fucking think about everything!” shouts Newton across the gap between them. Hermann jerks upright, snatching up his cane and marching to the line between them.

“I know,” he snaps. That gives Newton reason to pause.

“Fuck, man. What are you saying?”

“We have been acquainted for nearly eight hundred years,” he says. “And in the past week I have come to understand that I think of you as a...” In for a penny... “A friend. Forethought was not necessary; my actions were instinctual.”

“Friends,” says Newton. “Us. Friends.”

“Yes,” says Hermann.

“Oh. Shit.”

“Rather,” says Hermann faintly, looking away.

“Dude, I’m coming over there,” says Newton, snapping off his gloves. “Don’t freak out,” he says, and a moment later he has his arms around Hermann’s waist, and he’s hugging him. “I haven’t had a friend in ages.”

Uncertain about where to put his hands Hermann places one awkwardly between Newton’s shoulder blades.

“Likewise,” he manages.

“You can’t feel me anymore, can you? Like, I’m not in your head?”

“No.”

“Thank god,” breathes Newton. “I don’t know how the pilots do it.”

 

 

 

 

 

Everything would have been different if they’d met in a whirlwind and pulled apart to never talk again, but it was never like that. It was like a hundred tentative handshakes spread out over eight hundred years, each time slightly friendlier but still with a sensible distance between them.

They meet during the second war. Despite living through a hundred wars there’s only two they refer to without name: World War One, and World War Two. The first because it seemed about to swallow the world, and the second because it reminded them that shit could only ever get worse.

Hermann was with Einstein and Newton was in New York, enjoying a world that kept living into the night despite the weather, and it was not very strange that they ran into each other. They’ve been doing it for while now, accidentally meeting each other without rhyme or reason.

It’s a Tuesday night and they end up together at a restaurant surrounded by unwashed scientists and the unabashed roll of eager voices talking about their work. Newton’s talking to an actual medical doctor, and Hermann’s lost in conversation between Morse and von Neumann. They scarcely acknowledge each other bar a nod hello at introductions, but when they’re outside arranging for cabs to get everyone home Hermann’s searching his pockets for a light and Newton comes to stand beside him.

“Long time no see.”

“I’ve been busy with more important endeavours,” he says.

“More important than me?” asks Newton innocently. There’s a flare of a match and Hermann draws in smoke. Petulantly he blows it out into Newton’s face. “You should come to California. You’d hate it. All those people. And,” Newton turns so that he’s not standing close, but the way he breathes the words out feels intimate, inviting. “Plenty of us.”

“I’m going home,” says Hermann.

Newton steps back. “At a time like this? You’re insane. They’re killing us over there,” he cries, and he doesn’t bother to keep his voice down. “You can’t go back.”

“I mean England, but I appreciate your concern.”

“Christ Almighty,” breathes Newton. “You can’t do that to me.”

“I was unaware you cared.”

“Honey,” Newton chides. “Of course I care.” And then he snatches the cigarette out of Hermann’s lips and darts into the waiting cab to be pulled back to New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case the hover texts don't work the old German is as follows:  
> Huglausi inoborna kamphundr = cowardly unborn carrion eater  
> Bacraut = asshole


	3. Chapter 2

Driven by an uncomfortable sense of guilt that has refused to go away over the decades following Poland, Herman returns to Europe in 1380 focused on finding Newton. They agree to meet in neutral ground, that being Berlin.

“I have a theory and I think I’m right,” Newton begins without preamble as he takes a seat opposite. The barroom is soft at this hour in the early hours of Saturday (still Friday, in their mind). “It’s not that you don’t like me. You don’t like our kind in general. I should have picked it up first time we met but I was rather distracted at the time.” Hermann makes a face at the memory. “I’m right, yeah?”

It’s not an attitude that is particularly embraced by the vampire community, and one that Herman finds difficult to voice even though he knows it’s true. He licks his lips before he speaks. “I dislike creatures that murder, and I dislike the blood lust our kind so often fall to.”

“But I haven’t.”

“No,” says Hermann, shortly. “I must admit you have not. I am here to apologise -” Newton cuts him off impatiently.

“I mean, Poland wasn’t hell, was it?”

“I have had better years.”

“Everyone’s had better years.”

“Millions of people have had better years.”

Newton stares at him, and wonders if he’s got it all wrong, if perhaps Hermann likes humans. But Hermann only likes numbers, he likes his physics and his chemistry and he prefers the company of stars over anything that can speak. Hermann probably wants to know the exact death toll and the effect that will have on growth and population just as badly as Newton wants to know how it happened and how to make sure it never happens again.

Herman takes hold of the silence. “I want to apologise for my behaviour in Poland. I was unsuitably unkind.”

“That’s why you called? To say sorry even though I probably did more shit than you did?”

“I will hold that your experiments with the rats were entirely unnecessary.”

“I required that information! The digestive tract is -”

“I am not here to argue,” Hermann interrupts. “I am here to apologise.”

“You’re doing a good job of it,” Newton taunts, and Hermann stands up so fast his cane falls over. Awkward and angry he bends to pick it up.

“This was a mistake, Siegfried,” he growls. “I reiterate what I stated first we met: I hope to never see you again.”

“And again, I think I can live with that.”

 

 

 

 

Newton hands Hermann a book the day before Christmas.

This is strange for a multitude of reasons, the first of which is quickly rectified by Newton bouncing back over to his side of the lab and out of Hermann’s. Hermann’s been very strict about those rules and Newton has, on the whole, obeyed.

The second reason that it’s strange is the connection to Christmas, which neither of them celebrate. They established this back in the mid-1800s, when Hermann, thinking about Newton, sent Newton an article by Virchow. Newton promptly (inasmuch as any intercontinental communication in those days could be prompt) responded with a book and a frantic letter apologising for it being so late. Late for what? Hermann had asked back. He hadn’t noticed Christmas that year, only found an article relating to cell biology and posted it on, so Newton’s response that it had been Christmas was rather foreign to him. The confused letters were a little embarrassing to Hermann, feeling that he’d prompted something far more complicated than he’d intended.

So he takes the book from Newton a little nervous, knowing the date.

The third reason that Newton’s gift is odd – or his offer, he has not said that it is Hermann’s book, and it looks used and battered, which is not the sort of thing one would give as a gift, but books are rare.

Books are problematic to transport, expensive to produce using more wood than the battered planet has to offer, and Newton’s the sort to embrace new technology with his whole being. So this paperback novel is a little odd in the context of the kaiju war, in the context of a vampire, and in the context of it being 2020.

Hermann turns the book over so that he can see the cover, and sees a camel. It’s being ridden by a person in black and - possibly a woman? It’s probably a woman. There’s a lot of rounded flesh, at least.

In very big letters reads “TERRY PRATCHETT”, and in far smaller letters right at the bottom it says “PYRAMIDS”.

Hermann raises his head and looks across the lab at Newton, who is watching him expectantly.

“Why?”

“Remember how I called you a camel the other day?” It had been two weeks ago, now.

“And I pointed out that is a ghastly comparison and I won’t stand for it?”

What had happened was this: Newton had looked up from his work, watched Hermann at his work for about five minutes, and blurted out, “dude, you’re like a camel.”

“I am most certainly not,” Hermann had retorted. “For one, I am obviously not an ungulate, I do not have a dorsal storage of body fat, and I rarely have issues with overheating.”

“You’ve never read Discworld?” Hermann had only given him a withering glare. “But you’re like, super-nerd.”

“I am a more highly tuned and specialised breed of nerd to you,” said Hermann with a sniff.

“Whatever. Me calling you a camel is a compliment. Okay?”

Hermann had nodded, mostly so that Newton would shut up and he could return to his maths. He thought that was the end of it, but now he has a book in his hands and Newton is looking at him eagerly.

“I figured you needed some education.”

“About camels?”

“I had to get that shipped over to me. All my books are in New York.”

“You needn’t have gone to such lengths,” says Hermann. He opens the book to the first page, and sees a date there: 3-13-1990. He frowns at Newton’s handwriting; Hermann is not the sort to write in books. He is the sort to read books and take notes with fastidious care on expensive paper, leaving the book pristine.

“Look, just read it. You’ll thank me for it later.”

There isn’t much time for reading novels for pleasure, or doing anything for pleasure. The stress of the kaiju has distilled the pleasure from mathematics to the point that some days Hermann thinks he almost understands the displeasure with which high school children all across the globe observe math class. Still, Newton gave him the book and it sits beside his bed leering at him for half a week before he gives in to the inevitable and opens it up.

It’s not that he doesn’t read. Tolkien is familiar to him, as is Lovecraft and Bradbury and some of the more literary classics. Unfortunately most of his life has been necessarily devoid of novels: there was a time where the novel was neither produced nor accessible, and a time after that where novelists did not write of things that Hermann cares to read. He has read Dracula, mostly out of curiosity, and didn’t much enjoy it. There wasn’t enough maths, and the humans irritated him.

Despite himself he finds he enjoys the novel Newton lent him. And then, about halfway through, he finds this:

_The camel knew perfectly well what was happening. Three stomachs and a digestive system like an industrial distillation plant gave you a lot of time for sitting and thinking._

_It's not for nothing that advanced mathematics tends to be invented in hot countries. It's because of the morphic resonance of all the camels, who have that disdainful expression and famous curled lip as a natural result of an ability to do quadratic equations._

_It's not generally realised that camels have a natural aptitude for advanced mathematics, particularly where they involve ballistics. This evolved as a survival trait, in the same way as a human's hand and eye co-ordination, a chameleon's camouflage and a dolphin's renowned ability to save drowning swimmers if there's any chance that biting them in half might be observed and commented upon adversely by other humans._

Hermann reads it again, and he laughs to himself and then, on realising he is laughing, quickly presses his lips closed and tries to decipher the annotation.

The sentence “It's because of the morphic resonance of all the camels, who have that disdainful expression and famous curled lip as a natural result of an ability to do quadratic equations” has been underlined, and in the margin has been scrawled, simply, ‘Hermann’.

He flips back to the first page to check the date. He hadn’t seen Newton in some time and yet - yes. His name is there, messily scrawled alongside the description of a camel.

He gives the book back once he’s finished, and Newton looks up at him brightly.

“So?” he prompts.

“It was… readable,” says Hermann.

“Which means you loved it. Come on, if you can’t be honest with me who can you?” Hermann only glowered. “You loved it,” Newton taunted.

“I enjoyed the puzuma,” he admits.

“…The puzuma? Dude, they’re not even part of the story, they’re just a footnote!”

“I did not understand much of the story,” Hermann retorts.

“Fair point. It is, like, number seven in a series of, like forty. I can get the others down here if you want? The annotations don’t really work as eBooks.”

“That isn’t necessary,” says Hermann. Newton just keeps looking at him. “Oh, very well, if you insist.”

“Thanks Newt, no problem, Newt.” Hermann only continues his steady frown. “We’ll work on that tomorrow.”

 

 

 

They’re sitting together at the breakfast table picking at their food, each lost in thoughts of research and memories and the particular shape their porridge is making as it clumps together and drips off their spoons. It’s Sunday. The year ends in a week.

They’ve been through budget cuts. Nicolas is gone. So is James. Neither Hermann nor Newton care very much. Humans have come and gone so much that their anger at the situation has nothing to do with the people involved and everything to do with the fact that now they have a lab of only six trying to battle beasts that keep changing and keep coming and no one has any ideas that would flip the tables and put humans on the offensive.

They have been working all night and they’re going to go and sleep and wake up and work some more. A conversation is happening near them, and both Newton and Hermann are doing their very best to ensure it does not happen to them.

 _Plunk_ goes the porridge. Newton giggles at it.

He has not slept in three days, and is only here because Hermann informed him that he should act like a human being and at least appear to consume food. Not that Hermann is eating. They’re both pushing food around and not letting it pass their lips.

Hermann’s listening to heartbeats. Newton’s already complimented Tendo on his scent.

Sleep-deprived vampires are interesting breakfast companions.

Newton lifts his spoon and watches the porridge drop. He giggles again at the little noise it makes when it splats against the rest. Unfortunately that drags the attentions of everyone else.

“What about you?”

“Hmmm?” Newton’s reactions are embarrassingly slow after this many hours without sleep.

“Your parents,” says Tendo.

The breakfast table has their card-playing companions, and Hermann is looking at the Drifter table with some longing. No one talked to him there. No one talked to him before Newton got here, except Pentecost, and Pentecost had the good sense to understand that Hermann likes his space and his peace and quiet.

“Oh,” says Newton. It’s a familiar question, and he gives the familiar answer. “Mum was an opera singer.” It’s the truth, so long as one mangles one’s definition of ‘mother’. He knows that everyone wants to know about the past tense, so he adds in a softer voice, “Hundun happened.”

“I’m sorry,” says Mako. She offers him a small smile, and he gives one back. It still hurts. It consumes him, sometimes, and he does not think it will ever stop hurting.

“What about you, Doctor Gottlieb?” asks one of the LOCCENT staff. Possibly Jason. Possibly Ahleb. Hermann’s not very particular about noticing the names of unimportant humans. He has more important things to clutter his mind with.

Hermann tenses. “You’ve heard of my father,” he says. “Doctor Lars.”

The table is silent.

“Is he the one -?” asks one of the J-Techs.

“Yes,” says Hermann.

One must understand that Newton is exceptionally tired and never good with boundaries even at the best of times. He puts a hand across the table and touches Hermann’s. Hermann is too startled to do anything except look at the place where foreign skin is touching his.

They have been extremely careful around each other since the incident with the blood. Newton’s offering of the book was a kind of forgiveness, but even so, they’ve been... cautious. Hermann especially so. He has no desire to be friends with Newton and is still wrangling with this emotion within himself, and he looks at Newton’s hand on his and stares at it.

“Shit,” says Newton, talking about Lars and not the fact that his skin is colliding with Hermann’s, though the word is appropriate for both.

Hermann swallows. “Newton, your language is, as ever, crude and unnecessary.” He draws his hand back.

It tingles, but surely that is an imagined sensation.

“Soprano?” asks Tendo. They both blink at him. “Your mother.”

“Yes.”

“What was her name?” asks Hermann, wondering if he ever heard her sing.

Usually Newton does not tell the truth. His mother is gone and her name is his to keep and remember, but Hermann looks as tired as he feels, his face soft and friendly, and in that moment Newton cannot imagine that this man could ever do any harm. “You might know her as Maria Johanna Takano.”

“She performed in Venice,” says Hermann, and Newton looks at him with such an open expression of delight that what little breath he has drawn to speak catches in his throat.

“She did,” he sighs. “You got to see her?”

“She was exquisite,” says Hermann, and is rewarded by Newton grinning at memories, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

 

 

Maria is tall and large and terrifying. She’s an opera singer because she’s always been best at singing, Japanese by birth but her birth was so very, very long ago. She likes the name Maria. She took ‘Johanna’ when she met Johanna Eleonora De la Gardie, fell in love with her poetry and borrowed her name shortly after 1708.

It’s not an uncommon habit amongst vampires to take the names of humans they respected.

Hermann Goldschmidt was an astronomer, and Hermann’s always loved the stars.

Newton’s borrowed from Isaac because he thinks it’s funny. It’s a source of 7.2% of their arguments; Hermann calculated, and Newton threw a pipette at him in response. (Throwing things is the solution to 18.4% of their arguments; yelling is 60.1%, and the remaining 21.5% is a confused mix of someone storming off, Hermann hitting something with his cane, or one of them turning the music up as loud as the speakers will go. Hermann itches to write those percentages up more precisely on his board, but Newton hid kaiju in his bedroom and refused to tell him where it was until Hermann promised to stop calculating their relationship.)

Maria is a force of nature, and Maria is blind and beautiful and kind and if Newton could have been turned by anyone in the world he would have chosen her.

She hadn’t started out the night intending to end it with a child-vampire. He’d been in the wrong place in the wrong time, dying on a street in the middle of the night and she just happened to be nearby.

Newton has always been nerdy and small and a little bit bad at people. He’d been beaten half to death and he’s lucky that Maria found him fast enough that none of the wounds stuck through the transition. Sometimes they do.

Hermann was born with his leg the way it is, but Newton could have faced immortality with a broken zygomatic bone, a cracked frontal, and a smashed up mandible. His face would have been an odd series of valleys. Newton never regrets being turned. He doesn’t have time. He doesn’t slow down long enough to think about what life would have been, and by the time he even realises that’s a question he could consider he would have been dead for four centuries and look! There’s so much he knows and so much to know and how could anyone ever not want to be this?

Maria teaches Newton about music and about theatre. He learns how to sing and how to play various instruments, how to juggle and how to project his voice to all corners of the theatre.

But mostly, newly-made Newton learns about sex. He learns about sex with women and with men, the difference between a girl who’s new at it and a man who knows precisely what he wants, the angles he likes in a bed versus what works against a wall.

Newton doesn’t discover science for nearly fifty years because he’s too lost in sex. He doesn’t learn anything except a new position or a new sensation, until one day he’s waiting on his mother and someone tosses a book down on the table. His spoken Japanese is limited to his current habits and his written Japanese is non-existent, so when he picks it up he cannot read it.

And this irritates him.

He hasn’t been irritated like this before, not ever, and now that the itch is there he never gets rid of it.

He learns Japanese in two months and follows on quickly with Chinese simply because there’s so much similarity between the letters. Everyone’s a bit amused by the German wanting to learn kanji so he gets a lot of help, and tease him at every mistake he makes. He argues back, because that’s how he is. That’s how he always is. He goes so distracted by languages that he doesn’t notice that Maria leaves Japan, and getting out of Japan takes an extreme amount of effort. Newton sticks around to learn the basics of biology and chemistry; he goes to China and learns about gunpowder and movable type print; he learns architecture and civil engineering and the wonder of paper money.

(He’s too early to meet Hermann, who comes here only seven months after Newton, still in the Eleventh Century. Hermann’s there for magnetism and the astronomical meridian. They both learn from Shen Kuo, though neither of them realise this for another four hundred years on a Saturday evening, with the closest thing they’ll ever know to sunlight spreading grey across the sky. They both quote from his _Dream Pool Essays_ , and it’s the first time they consider the other might be worth knowing.)

He devours Asia as quickly as he can, leaving so many gaps in his knowledge that it embarrasses him, but he wants to know it all. He wants to understand economics and he wants to be able to build clocks and he wants to diagnose every disease perfectly and he wants to be an expert in nautics and chemistry and astronomy.

Imagine the effects of attention deficit disorder spread out over a thousand years. An inability to focus and then a sudden obsession on one minute factor. Newton learned the piano but not sheet music, imitating the sounds he heard without learning the rules, the same as his mother learned. He did science the other way around, learning the rules thoroughly, finding the boundaries of his existence and wanting to push them.

He wants to know everything.

 

 

Vampires are traditionally terrible at living in one place, and Newton is naturally terrible at being a vampire. Vampires are antisocial things that bounce from place to place and treat humans like dogs.

Newton loves humans.

He loves humans and he hates moving.

For one, he loves books, and owns far too many to take with him and even on short trips away he finds himself needing a particular volume that he does not have on hand. For another, organising transportation that is definitely sun-proofed is irritating. He jokes that vampires really can’t cross running water, so he’s trapped by the rivers and creeks and everything else and just has to stay here for at least the next fifty years. Maria glares at him and says he’s just lazy. Which is true, but she doesn’t really mind. Some children try to stay close to their Maker, but Maria never intended to be a mother.

Vampires are not made to live in close proximity to each other.

So Newton sticks around in China and then bounces on down to current-day India when people ask why he’s not ageing. India’s languages are too far outside of his realm for understanding so he goes back to Europe and he doesn’t leave Europe until America’s been rediscovered, and then he doesn’t leave America again until the 1900s.

 

 

 

 

 

The first Tuesday of 2021 Tendo comes to them. He doesn’t know either of them particularly well bar a few card games and that conversation about their family. Neither Newton nor Hermann have friends as a rule, but they get invited to cards occasionally and even more rarely they’ll remember to go.

Tendo’s a nice enough chap, friendly with a solid knowledge of languages that means they can practice their own on occasion, and he’s got a brain with a capacity big enough to grasp some of the concepts they come up with.

He’s friendlier with Hermann because everyone is. Hermann is polite and considerate, quiet in forming relationships while Newton is obnoxious and loud and doesn’t appear to care much about anyone.

In any case, Newton is all biology while Hermann works close to Tendo, mathematics and programming and making sure that that pilots’ minds meld properly through machine.  Newton dreams about kaiju and Hermann dreams in numbers. 

Tendo shuffles in a little awkwardly, and scruffs up his hair at the nape of his neck in a nervous gesture.

“So, uh, Newton,” he says. Today the ambiance is loud and windy. Hermann’s choice, of course, because it’s a Tuesday and on Tuesdays Hermann gets to choose the music. Sometimes Newton refuses to let Hermann have his turn because being yelled at in so many dead languages is exhilarating, but today he was distracted by a new manga arriving in the mail. Any mail is rare; new manga is even rarer.

Newton does not looking up from the microscope to greet Tendo.

“I wanna ask a question.” Tendo considers asking if the wind can be turned down, but he’s embarrassed and he doesn’t want Hermann listening in. Newton flicks the light on his microscope and spins around, bringing his glasses back down to his nose.

“And look, it’s the stupidest question. But before I ask I wanna remind you that I’m one of the most intelligent guys in the PPDC, and I will be missed. So. Just remember that. Okay?”

Newton glances at Hermann and gave a nervous chuckle. “Aha. Okay, I promise not to, um, make you disappear?” Tendo’s smile can only be called ‘extremely worried’, and Newton’s attempt to smile and put him at ease doesn’t seem to be working. “Shoot.”

“Are you a vampire?” Tendo blurts.

Newton freezes a moment too long before laughing and shaking his head. “Where did you get that idea from?” he exclaims, trying to sound incredulous, because vampires are stupid myths and he’s had the same accusation thrown at him often enough in jest for his sleeping habits that it shouldn’t grip him with panic quite as much as it does.

“I was talking to a buddy down in Panama,” says Tendo firmly. “Said you never went inside, and they have mandatory outdoor exercise every day.”

“Yeah, I like to sleep.” Newton shrugs. “Who doesn’t?”

“All through the day?” asks Tendo. “And you speak a lot of languages I’ve never heard of.” Now he’s on a roll, and he juts out his chin. “I had a translator running over one of your old logs and it said you were speaking a form of Spanish that’s dead since the Middle Ages.”

“Six doctorates,” says Newton.

“Not at any university I can find,” Tendo retorts.

“I was at MIT.”

“When?” asks Tendo. “And how old are you? Newton Geiszler doesn’t exist in any recent years.”

“Look at him,” sneers Hermann. “Can you really imagine he’s a vampire?”

Tendo turns and regards Hermann. His heart is in his throat and both Newton and Hermann can hear it, but he bravely keeps on. “I can imagine you’re a vampire.”

“You can imagine me ripping into a man’s throat and drinking his blood?” asks Hermann. He’s speaking calmly, one eyebrow raised elegantly, the rest of his face turned down into its usual frown.

“No,” says Tendo. “But I can imagine you very politely reorganising Medical so that the blood is stored in your fridges here.” He makes a move towards them, and both Hermann and Newton stare. That had been Hermann’s idea, having panicked each time he saw the blood supply lowering, knowing that Newton would have to steal some more. Offering Medical some space in their lab just made sense, and it gives Newton something to do between irritating Hermann with his bongos. “I have the numbers here. I know exactly how much is meant to be in them. Think they’ll be accurate?”

Newton looks at Hermann, who rolls his eyes to the heavens.

“Fine,” says Newton. “We’re vampires. Both of us. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

Tendo narrows his eyes. “We need that blood for transfusions. You’ve been stealing it.” Hermann snorts a laugh, and looks disgusted at himself for it.

“Yeah,” says Newton, because, uh, obviously. “Starvation is not a good lifestyle on anyone.”

“Can’t you eat animals?”

At that Hermann starts outright laughing. “This is ridiculous,” he says. “You’re concerned about Medical?”

Tendo folds his arms over his chest. “Can you?” he pushes.

“No,” says Newton. “Human only. If it were any other way I promise you we would, but vegetarianism is not a long-term lifestyle. Look, we’re not gonna maul anybody, we’re gonna solve the world’s problems and stay out of the sun. I dunno about Hermann here -”

“Doctor Gottlieb,” snaps Hermann.

“I dunno about the pretentious jerk here, but I haven’t killed anyone for whole decades.” Tendo pales a little, and Newton frowns.

“Honestly, Newton,” says Hermann.

“Are you dead?” Tendo blurts. They both blink, startled, though they have heard this question before.

“We are immortal,” says Hermann, sternly. “It is much the same thing, don’t you think?” Then he sighs, because he knows Tendo well enough to know the man will only Google vampires, and that will come up with a litany of false assumptions they’ll bear the brunt of. “Why don’t you go and sit down,” he gestures at the couch with his cane, “and I’ll make you a cup of tea, and then we’ll answer all the questions you have.”

Tendo’s not actually thrilled with that idea, but he feels entirely certain he has no choice. In any case, he might not have any other chances to ask all the questions he does have, so he obediently sits. He rubs his fingers over the beads around his wrist and wonders if God is real.

“Dude,” says Newton. “Seriously, relax. No plans to kill you. For starters: you’re right, you are useful, and secondly, you’re not going to tell anyone about us. It sounds fucking idiotic, and on the off-chance someone does believe you, well, you need us. Both of us. Though,” he breaks off, considering, “we don’t need Lars. Maybe let it be known that Lars is a vampire.”

“I can hear you,” says Hermann. Newton spins on his chair to face the open door of the kitchenette.

“Yeah, but Lars is a dick. Can’t I break my no-killing rule and, I dunno, kill him?”

“Lars would rip your head off,” says Hermann confidently. “And he’s not so bad. Manageable.” Newton makes a face, and Hermann amends that to, “From a distance.” He brings in a tray, complete with biscuits, and sets it down in front of Tendo.

“Lars is a vampire?” exclaims Tendo. “Doctor Lars, the guy with the Wall?”

“Yes,” says Hermann. “You would have thought various walls over the centuries would have taught him.” He sighs, and begins pouring the tea. “I assure you he is not altogether terrible to know.”

“What’s he a doctor of?” asks Newton.

“Nothing. He decided a while ago that doctors garner more respect.”

“What a wanker,” says Newton.

“That’s my father,” Hermann warns. “And he was involved in the creation of the Jaegers. He’s not an imbecile.”

“Are you certain?” asks Newton. “He is trying to kill us. All of us. That includes him.”

“I am aware,” say Hermann. “I have not spoken to him since.” But he’s still Hermann’s father, and some things he will not stand for.

Once tea is served they all sit back in their respective chairs and wait.

“So,” says Newton, into the silence. “We feed off the blood of humans. How’re you dealing with that particular piece of information?”

“Not well,” says Tendo faintly. “What about the others?”

“Other vampires?” asks Newton slowly. “We don’t talk to the others.”

“No, here,” says Tendo. “Your lab partners.”

“Oh. No. God, no!” says Newton. “This isn’t public information. It’s not even really private information.”

“They have enough problems grasping the fact that we are under attack from giant creatures from another world,” says Hermann, tapping his cane in irritation.

“Your leg,” blurts Tendo. “That happened… Before? After?”

“I was born with this particular ailment,” says Hermann stiffly. “Vampirism does not cure all.”

“Hence the glasses,” says Newton cheerfully, tapping the plastic frames and snatching attention away from Hermann’s discomfort. “And my mental-things. The invention of glasses really solved a lot of problems,” he continues. His voice is fast and nervous, and he keeps darting looks at Hermann, who is grinding his teeth and looking across the room at his computer.

“You’ve been… For how long?” asks Tendo. “How old are you?”

Hermann huffs loudly and is about to begin on a rant when Newton reaches out a hand. It settles on Hermann’s knee, which startles Hermann into silence more than anything else. “What Doctor Gottlieb here was about to say is, asking our age is rather rude, but you’re a friend. Isn’t he?” he adds, digging his nails into Hermann’s leg. “We’re were both made over a thousand years ago. Both Germany, too. We didn’t meet until a couple hundred years later.”

“I am older,” says Hermann.

“Anyone can tell that,” says Newton. “You’re such a stick-in-the-mud.”

“Braudnefr,” mutters Hermann, pushing Newton’s hand away and recrossing his legs.

“I take umbrage at that,” Newton retorts. “Ergo sum pulchellus.”

“Are you two together?” asks Tendo, suddenly incredulous.

“No,” they say at once.

“He doesn’t like vampires,” Newton explains. “He doesn’t like anyone.”

“Quite right,” says Hermann primly.

“Außer mir,” adds Newton, softly.

“Ganz richtig,” Hermann repeats.

“Garlic does nothing. Sunlight kills. We aren’t visible in mirrors,” continues Newton. “Hence,” he gestures at the scruff on his face.

“Some of us learn how to maintain appearances,” interrupts Hermann.

“Look-at-his-hair,” Newton coughs, and it’s that, this childishness that’s being maintained even now, that makes Tendo relax. And wonder if perhaps he’s having his leg pulled.

“Look, how do I know this is real?”

Hermann looks at Newton, who sighs.

“Ugh, I hate this part. Okay, one moment…” Newton turns his head and grimaces, tilting his head up backwards and making a small “ow” noise. He turns back, lips parted and teeth awfully sharp and white between. Tendo lets out a rush of air and looks at the exit. Newton quickly retracts the fangs.

“How does that work?”

“Painfully. Thank god for hypodermic needles.”

“Thank Christopher Wren,” Hermann corrects.

“Hey! We don’t speak his name!” Newton cried. “You know the rules.”

“What’s wrong with Christopher Wren?” asks Tendo.

“He didn’t invite me into his house.” Newton slumps in his seat and folds his arms over his chest. “He’s a poo-face.”

“So, that’s a thing?” asks Tendo. “The invitations?”

“Oh, very much so,” says Hermann. “The rules are fairly ambiguous,” he makes a face at this, “but I believe I would have some difficulty entering your room in the Shatterdome, even though you do not own it. Possession is more in the spirit of the thing than the letter of the law.”

“Stake through the heart?” asks Tendo. He looks suddenly scared for asking the question, but Hermann just presses his lips together in his usual frown while Newton answers.

“Not a positive thing for the whole continued life deal.” He doesn’t mention what bullets can do. No one seems to pick up on the fact that a stake through the heart is absolutely nothing special. “But we can get sick, if we drink the wrong blood.”

JAX-I makes a whining noise and Hermann stands up. “This has been lovely, but I need to work. Do pop in again if you have any questions.”

He stalks away and turns his music back on, which muffles Newton’s words a bit. “He’s lovely, really. You’re fine. Safe, even, if that helps.” Tendo looks over at Hermann. It doesn’t really.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lars is tall, with the same long mouth that Hermann has, and for a moment Newton wonders if perhaps they’re related by blood as well as, well, blood. He’s only here by accident: Lars is meeting with Pentecost, who has his usual retinue of Herc Hansen and Tendo Choi at attendance. Mako Mori stands immediately behind Pentecost, clipboard in hand and looking all the world for a demure assistant.

Hermann’s here because Lars is here.

Newton’s here because Hermann’s been fidgety all week, and a fidgety vampire is the last thing on anyone’s list of people to spend time in a great big metal box with. Hermann had looked at the clock fifteen times in half as many minutes, readjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, polished his glasses with his hanky and then fastidiously folded it up into a perfect square that he put into his pocket, and although none of this on its own is particularly strange, given that it is Hermann Gottlieb that we are discussing, Newton decided that all together all on the same day was a little bit strange.

When Hermann took his cane and muttered something about a meeting Newton hadn’t even waited for the door to slide shut behind him before dashing after to follow.

Apparently that is been one of the most idiotic things Newton has ever done, because it means he comes face to face with Lars Gottlieb. He freezes and tries desperately to melt into the background, and then shuffles to hide behind Tendo, but not quite fast enough.

“Doctor Gottlieb,” says Pentecost, addressing Lars. “I don’t believe you’ve met the other half of the heads of our K-Science team.”

That Hermann and Newton are in charge of their respective areas hardly matters: the lab is so reduced that their authority is a non-issue. In any case, they only work at night. Discussions with their team happen over breakfast or dinner, and are necessarily cut short.

The kaiju keep coming.

Newton has nightmares about them, nightmares that are horrific and last weeks after each event.

Hermann does his maths and Newton goes through the laborious process of burying ink under his skin in an effort to forget. It doesn’t work, but the pain helps.

Vampires rarely look like vampires. Newton is pale but he’s always been pale, and standing next to Pentecost anyone with white skin is going to look translucent. He has tattoos. He has his Buddy Holly glasses and his skinny tie. He looks like a short, nerdy xenobiologist, and when a hand is offered for him to shake he sees that Lars wears leather gloves, but he ate recently and his hands were in his pockets just a second ago so he probably seems at least nearly as warm as the average human.

“Yes. Pleasure,” he says, shaking Lars’ hand and meeting his eyes, trying to put as much contempt into them as possible.

“It’s good to meet you,” says Lars. “My son has not mentioned you.”

Newton suspects that was meant to be an insult, so he grins like it’s a compliment. “And he’s only mentioned you once. Not surprising, really, seeing how your work kind of goes against the work we’re doing here.”

Lars frowns. It’s nothing like Hermann’s frown, which is sort of the natural state of his face and Newton’s come to consider them fairly adorable. Lars looks more like a serial killer.

Probably he’s one of those vampires. Most are, after a while. Immorality is not something that anyone should live through.

“But seriously, dude, what’s your game-plan here? You’re like Unalaq, all, ‘let’s destroy the world’. Newsflash, Doctor,” he sneers, “you’re in this world, and you’re gonna die, too.”

“Doctor Geiszler!” chides Pentecost, but it’s less a command and more a bemused parent struggling not to laugh at their child’s antics. “You were not invited to this meeting.”

“Right, sir. Sorry, sir,” says Newton. He flashes a grin at the Marshall, who doesn’t exactly smile back, but it’s always difficult to tell with his face. Tendo rolls his eyes and Hermann - Hermann stares at him. Newton winks, and on his way past brushes his fingers over the back of Hermann’s hand, an attempt to comfort him.

 

 

 

 

 

Hermann is drunk. Hermann is very drunk.

Last Newton saw of him was there in the sort-of-foyer of the Shatterdome, standing with square shoulders and a severe frown in front of his father. Only a few hours later Newton gets tired of the emptiness of the lab and goes for a walk to see what happened to the vampire.

He expected to find Hermann in a mood after spending time with his father, of whom he refuses to speak due to emotions that are far more complicated than what most have towards their Maker. He didn’t expect to find him drunk and wandering the halls.

They have a short argument, mostly along the lines of “where the hell were you, dude?” and “you’re not my mother - or my father, a fact for which I am exceptionally pleased”. This devolves into the typical discussion regarding Hermann’s sentence structure and, “did you seriously swallow a dictionary because you should not be this trashed and still using words that long.”

Hermann tries to hit Newton with his cane, and they struggle for a few seconds before Hermann collapses into Newton’s arms. Newton uses the momentary distraction to wrench the cane from his hands and toss it away to ward against future violence.

“Bad day?” He tries to right Hermann.

“Very bad,” says Hermann, refusing to be righted. He breathes against Newton’s neck. “I want to swallow your blood.”

“Yeah, dude, weird,” he says, because the alternative words on his tongue are something like ‘fuck please’. He shoves Hermann away from him so that neither of them do anything untoward.

“Where’s my cane?”

“You were hitting me.”

“I can’t walk without my cane.”

Newton sighs. “Dude, I know. Stay there.” He moves to get the cane but Hermann does not stay. He insists on leaning on Newton. “Okay, no cane, then. Doctor Gottlieb, may I walk you back to your room?”

Hermann giggles.

“For fucks-” He spies movement and calls out. “Oi! Help us with a drunk scientist?”

Tendo spins, lollypop in his mouth and cup of coffee in his hand.

“It’s midnight.”

“Yeah, tell me about starting early,” says Newton. “Take his other arm, would you? Hermann, no, don’t lick his - Hermann!” Newton snatches Hermann back away from Tendo and spins him so that their faces are closed, noses pressed together. “Humans are friends, not food. We do not bite our friends.”

“I was not going to. I like his face.”

“Now there’s a compliment if I ever heard one,” says Tendo. “Just a sec.” He puts his coffee mug down by the wall and slings one of Hermann’s arms over his shoulder. “Never seen you like this.”

“Neither have I,” says Newton.

“Don’t like drinking,” mutters Hermann.

“Mm, I can tell,” says Tendo.

“Just, my father.”

“Hush, now. Onkel Siegfried hat dich.”

Tendo raises an eyebrow. “Siegfried?”

Newton grunts as he shifts Hermann’s weight on his shoulders to press the elevator button. “Haven’t always been called Newton. When we met and didn’t know what name we were using we called each other Siegfried.”

“Ich bin ein Versager,” mutters Hermann. “It was meant to be just,” he fumbles for his English and ends up with, “sunufatrungo. Uns.” They drag him into the elevator. “Us. Erdun endi himiles.” He shakes his head. “Nequeo...”

“Any idea what he’s saying?”

Newton summarises. “We’re at the depressive stage of the night.”

“Shit.”

“Soon he’ll confess his undying love.”

“Yeah, think I might pass on that,” says Tendo.

“Sprichst du über mich?”

Tendo pats Hermann’s cheek. “English, darling, please.” It’s a struggle to get out of the elevator, and they have to practically lift him out.

“Good thing he won’t remember this, huh?” laughs Tendo. “He’d have a fit.”

“No such luck,” grumbles Newton, pushing Hermann onto Tendo so he can key in the code for the lab. “We’re elephants. We never forget.”

“What, anything?” They shuffle Hermann through the door, who has now decided that he can, in fact, walk, and would like do that now please. Tendo and Newton try to guide him across the room.

“Nothing. Ever. Unless we don’t notice it. Like, I can’t remember what colour bowtie you were wearing the day we met.”

“I am offended that you didn’t notice.”

“Too lost in your beautiful eyes,” quips Newton. “Oh, Herms, what are you doing now?” Hermann’s moving towards his blackboard. His steps are somewhat unsteady but rather good considering the circumstances.

“Ich hatte ein- eine - a faszin-in? inierende idea.”

“Have that idea in bed,” says Newton. He’d had plans for today, glorious plans involving his pipette and his dissection microscope, and later the centrifuge. He looks longingly at the pieces of old kaiju ready and waiting to be attacked with various chemicals.

Hermann turns a very serious gaze on Newton.

“With you?”

“Christ im Himmel,” sighs Newton. “Go the fuck to bed.” Hermann’s still looking at him and Newton growls. “Alone.”

Tendo helps him further, and Newton feels a little bad because the guy’s three floors from where he wants to be, plus his coffee’s probably gone cold. But he manhandles the vampire with bravery belied by frustration and wrangles Hermann into bed. Hermann falls asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow.

Tendo steps back to let Newton untie his laces and pull off his shoes. “This his room?”

“Yes,” says Newton, leaning over Hermann to take his glasses out of his pocket.

“Thought it would look different.”

“More coffins less tweed?” Tendo makes an embarrassed noise and Newton shrugs. “You’re not the first. One girl was convinced I slept in the ground. Offered to dig my bed for me.” He considers. “She was a little weird.” He straightens up and sighs. “Suppose I’m going to be checking in on him every half hour to make sure he’s not vomited on himself.”

“Maybe you should take off his jacket.”

Newton snorts. “Nah, man, his own stupid fault for wearing it and drinking.” He turns out the light and closes the door. “I do have to go find his cane. I’m not sure where I threw it.”

“You took his cane?”

“Self-defence! He was hitting me!”

“Low blow, brother.”

“Look, he’s like, a thousand years old. He can cope without his stick for a few hours.”

 

 

Hermann discovers maths when he’s very young. He’s the son of a well-off noble so despite the fact that he’s born with a leg that rarely takes weight he’s not left out in the cold.

Don’t look at me like that. Infanticide was so common as to be commonplace, scarcely worth mentioning, and multiple societies at multiple points in history had to put in schemes to prevent such methods merely due to dropping population sizes.

Hermann’s male, not the oldest, but male nonetheless, with a clever mind and a quick tongue, and despite his limbs he learns quickly to move fast and talk fast and make people notice him.

He loves numbers as soon as he learns them. He loves the way they fall together on the page.

He’s turned when he’s nearly thirty, and he’s turned all because he argues with a man who arrives at their gates after dark, and he doesn’t back down even when the man’s turned a ferocious glare on him.

Hermann’s twenty-nine and never married and the man comes to his room while Hermann’s at his desk with a codex close to his nose. He’s always been long-sighted.

As the almost-outcast that he is he’s no stranger to strange invitations. Everyone seems to think that his habits run sour of the norm, what with his numbers and his stick and his lack of easy conversation. He’s heard the rumours about himself, and he ignores them, on the whole.

Though the one where he’s a demon and goes running through the trees during the night is… interesting. Hermann has never run a single step in his life.

There’s a knock on the door and he answers without looking up from his book. He presumes it’s going to be one of the house-servants. It often is; they know his habits and if they see a light under his door they will bring him a drink before they retreat to bed.

“You’re a night-owl, like me,” says the man. Lars, his name is, or at least, that’s what his name _will_ be so it’s the name we will use.

Hermann scowls at the intrusion on his reading. He’s got a very good scowl, even here, and it makes Lars smile.

Lars isn’t evil. Please get that idea out of your head. Lars is not evil, and here he is very young.

Hermann is his first.

He closes the door behind him and advances on Hermann. His footfalls are soft and Hermann sits back in his chair to look up at him. He’s tall, and Hermann cannot decide if he is attractive or not. Lars puts a hand on the desk and leans down over Hermann. Hermann twists his head away so that their lips do not meet, and Lars laughs.

“This isn’t like that. I want to give you something.”

“What?” scowls Hermann.

Lars explains what it is that he is, and when Hermann tries to escape Lars holds him in place. But he does not bite him. He talks to him, softly. “I know this is a lot to take in. But believe me, it’s a gift. Immortality. Imagine,” he gestures at the pages of the codex, uneven handwriting over expensive paper, “you’ll have the time to learn everything. To travel anywhere. Go to Arabia and learn algebra, go to China and learn engineering. Ah, your eyes light up at words you don’t know.” He smiles, and it’s not at all cruel. “I will be at Lucilinburhuc until the spring. Write me there, or visit. But if you visit,” he leans close, “you best know what you want.”

He leaves Hermann alone and Hermann soldiers through the rest of the autumn and into the winter.

His sister gives birth and the child dies. The leaves fall off old branches and Hermann finishes reading his codex and falls idle. He dreams of bigger worlds, of a future that continues on until forever.

He calls a servant to him and tells them to prepare a carriage for the next day. He goes out often enough that this is no surprise; neither is the command that his belongings be packed up. That night he informs his parents that he must go away on business. They nod and do not ask questions, and before the week is over he is at Lucilinburhuc and before the month is out he dreams only in red.

 

 

He does not think of hating Lars for more than a century. He never hates Lars for what he did to him. That was his choice, and he never regrets it. But Lars likes company Hermann does not, he has habits Hermann does not approve of, and although Hermann is disenchanted with the concept of a social life and more in love with science than anyone he has ever met, Hermann does not like the way so many vampires treat human like cattle.

Humans are inventing, they’re thinking and creating, and everyday new ideas are being formed and Hermann hates that the vampires are so willing to dismiss these lives merely because they disappear in half a hundred years.

Then he has his first run-in with a mob angry at him for a murder another vampire committed, and he swears to himself to never again spend time in a place that houses any of his own kind.

 

 

 

The visitor is unexpected. The visitor is tall and pale and both Hermann and Newton stare a moment before coming to their senses.

“Why the bloody hell are you here?” snaps Hermann, snatching up his cane and stalking over. Newton takes another couple seconds, hands coming away from kaiju with a squelch. He leaves his gloves on, because kaiju blue hurts vampires too, and he’s terrible at fighting and always needs all the advantages he can get. 

“Thought I’d pop in on my way to Malaysia. I like Malaysia this time of year.” She grins, and it’s evil, the sort of grin which makes Newton wonder if that’s actual blood she’s wearing for lipstick.

She flicks her eyes to Newton and dismisses him, which, bizarrely, angers Hermann more than the fact that she walked into their lab as though she belongs here.

“I did not invite you.”

“Honey, we should have this conversation elsewhere, don’t you think?” She glances at Newton, who narrows his eyes in response.

“Do not call me that,” glowers Hermann. “Whatever you say can be said in front of Newton.”

Newton rests his tattooed elbows on the desk in front of him and smiles cheerfully. His heart warms a little at Hermann’s forceful insistence. “Family reunion, is it? She doesn’t look like you.” He smirks, cheerful and obnoxiously human. A vampire would be wary in the face of their own, and a vampire would not be so colourful.

“This is my sister,” Hermann explains.

“You’re related to that godawful Lars fellow? Jesus, do you wanna hug?” The woman gives him a withering glare and Newton smiles and flutters his eyelashes, and glances sideways to see if there’s anything that could double as a weapon nearby.

“I came out of courtesy, to see if you’re alright.” The woman looks Hermann up and down, and Hermann glares back as if his sweater is thicker than mere wool and his trousers are long enough to hide the stars on his socks and as though he is not an immortal cripple who probably cannot fight for shit. At least, Newton suspects he cannot, and has no desire to have reason to find out.

“I am fine,” Hermann grits out.

“So I see,” she said. “Keeping alive, at least, though I am surprised. Is this your thrall?” Hermann’s jaw twitches, and the woman gives a smile. It could be a kind smile; she could not possibly be all evil. It takes work to become like that, and no doubt there is a good deal about her that is lovely and kind and worth knowing. “It’s tiny,” she says, of Newton. “Don’t you drink it dry in a single meal?”

“Obviously not,” Hermann snaps. “I am perfectly well after father’s visit, please leave now.”

“Oh, brother dear, why don’t you like us?”

“Because you kill people,” he says flatly.

“As though you’ve not done your fair share of murdering.” Hermann grinds his teeth. He has no desire to bring up his multiple grievances with his family, brought about over hundreds and hundreds of years and involving things as petty as a shoe ending up in someone’s luggage to things as complicated as property and titles, and the fact that one of Hermann’s numerous siblings has, by family vote, been exiled to Indonesia until such a time that anyone could be bothered to deal with them again.  

“He’s obviously fine,” snaps Newton. “Why don’t you bugger on off?”

“It’s very obnoxious,” continues the woman. She turns back to Hermann. “Dieterich is asking after you.”

“Dieterich is allowed to contact me himself, if he wants.” The woman smiles and Hermann frowns. “He does not want,” Hermann realises. “Is that why you’re here? To taunt me? Whatever game the two of you are playing, I do not care. I am saving the world,” he continues, scathing and almost childish.

The woman, meanwhile, is walking towards Newton and surveying him like a creature in a shop.

“You really like these human creatures, don’t you?” She glanced back at Hermann. “This, here,” she waved a hand at the rusting walls of the lab. “What’s the point of it all?”

“I really like this living business,” he growls. His cane is in his hand and he is advancing on her. His face is set in a frown, not the Newton’s-being-his-usual-irritating-self frown but his I-can-and-will-decimate-you frown. Newton’s still smiling but it’s tense and he’s more than a little scared. He’s seen vampires fight before and has no desire to see it ever again, but he doesn’t want to let on that he’s anything less than human.

“Good _bye_ , Karla.”

“Whatever.” She flounces out, the heavy door making a solid clunking noise behind her.

Hermann stands in the middle of the floor holding his cane like a weapon and looking more than a little lost.

“Family, huh?” asks Newton. Hermann says nothing. “How did she even get in here? Isn’t there security against random vampires walking in here?”

Hermann turns his gaze on Newton. He seems a little lost for words, and when they come out they are stiff and disjointed.

“I want to thank you for playing along. Both now and with my father.”

“Dude, dunno if you ever picked this up but I don’t like vampires much. Not in my media and not in my life.”

Hermann straightens up. His cane is still in his hand and, suddenly realising that, he shifts his grip so that it’s an extra leg, not a sword. He had never considered the idea that Newton was as unhappy with their living situation as he was. “I was unaware that you felt that way,” he says, voice still a little stilted. “I have not yet thanked you for your assistance last night despite my… indiscretions. And some of my choices of phrasing were not what I would have chosen were I… of sound mind.”

“Hey, hey! I don’t mean you. You’re literally the only vampire I can stand.” Hermann relaxes all at once, shoulders dropping and his stiff frown softening. “Maybe apologise to Tendo, though. He didn’t seem freaked out but it’s not every day that a vampire tries to lick your face. Maybe just try to clear the air?”

 

 

 

Herman goes outside with half an hour to spare before sunrise. The kaiju attacked two days before, and the pilots are only just returning to the Shatterdome. Hermann needs to be there, needs to go over the readings and needs to find out what went wrong this fight that can be made better next time.

Newton’s already getting all the videos he can, hunched over the computer screen scribbling notes down on paper to double-check his theories against what pieces of the creature he’ll end up getting his hands on. It probably won’t be much. There’s not enough money and the military doesn’t care and the PPDC is stretched too thin to get to the corpse before the black marketeers.

Hermann thinks of the numbers and he thinks of the monsters and he feels sick. There’s bile rising in his throat. After half a second he rushes to the edge and vomits. It’s red and watery, and it gets washed away by sea spray. He wipes his mouth with his handkerchief, shaking all over.

There’s too much. There’s too much and there’s no end to it. He will die here, too.

The sky is cloudy and streaked grey. His eyes adjust quickly to the dimness, and he leans against the concrete wall of the Shatterdome. He’s got a cigarette between his lips and is about to light it when Tendo joins him.

“Those things will kill you,” Tendo says, automatically.

Hermann considers. “No,” he says, cigarette caught in his lips. He lifts the lighter and clicks it on. The light blinds Tendo a second, and then the cigarette is lit. He takes it from his lips, puts the lighter away and breathes out a ball of smoke. “They won’t.”

“Got a spare?”

“They will kill you,” says Hermann, but he offers one anyway, because probably Tendo will die from a kaiju first.

They stand there in the coming darkness, vampire and human, each considering how close the end is.

“Do you feel ready?” asks Tendo.

Hermann does not understand the question.

“You’re old. I’m just wondering. If it’d be easier if I were older.” He takes a drag of his cigarette, a fast movement that sends the beads around his wrist clinking together. “In ethics class you always let the old die first. But I don’t want to die.”

“Neither do I,” says Hermann. He closes his eyes and can only see his blackboards. “We will keep fighting. I promise you that. Until the very last breath.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picture Lars as a kind of Mads Mikkelsen lookalike. 
> 
> Translations that are perhaps something close to accuracy:
> 
> Braudnefr = bread nose  
> Ergo sum pulchellus = I am pretty  
> Ich bin ein Versager = I am a failure  
> sunufatrungo. Uns. Us. Erdun endi himiles. Nequeo. = Son and father. Us. Always and forever. I am unable.  
> Sprichst du über mich? = Are you talking about me?  
> Ich hatte ein- eine - a faszin-in? inierende idea. = I have a fascinating idea.  
> Lucilinburhuc = Luxembourg Castle


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains: alcohol, a depressive attack, dancing, blood, a passing mention of sex and a discussion of sexuality. No back flashes for this chapter.

They spend all their waking hours in the laboratory, and with their rooms right next door and their night-time habits they’ll go days at a time not seeing anyone else, or any space else. This is a bad idea: vampires should not live so close together; and just in terms of their mental health it’s foolish to never get out into new spaces. Just work and sleep and nothing else isn’t healthy no matter what kind of diet you’re on.

It takes one of the medical staff bringing supplies past for Newton to comment on this to her supervisor, who mentions it in passing to Tendo.

Tendo, being the sort of guy that he is, invites them to his weekly card games.

The eternal memory of the vampire doesn’t work perfectly. The brain likes to rid itself of redundant information, or at least pretend it’s not existing for a while, so while Tendo informs them that cards will be played on Friday nights, and both Hermann and Newton recall this piece of information, and they sometimes wake up and notice that it’s Friday and fully intend to stop work and go to the card game, it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the information doesn’t connect, sometimes they get distracted, and sometimes Newton sleeps in and without prompting Hermann doesn’t know if he cares to go.

Here’s a fact: Hermann can count cards. So can Newton, sort of, but Newton gets distracted easily and although he can count cards he can also be tempted to not count cards by something as bland as digestive biscuits.

Hermann is horrible to play card games with, because he insists on winning. Newton is worse, because he’s a very sore loser. Their bickering makes for an entertaining night, but it’s suggested that perhaps a less… argumentative entertainment also be sorted out.

So Tendo invents movie nights, which is more conducive to larger groups of people and has the added bonus of Hermann hitting Newton with his cane anytime Newton tries to make more than the accepted level of noise. This is much to the entertainment of all involved, bar Newton. (Hermann accepts no noise where Newton is concerned; with the others he couldn’t give two hoots.)

It’s a rare card night that they’ve remembered and shown up to on time.

“Can I choose the music tonight?” asks Newton, throwing his coat over the back of one of the chairs.

“Please, no,” says Hermann.

One of the J-Techs at the table pipes up. “For his sanity I think we’ll let Mako.” Mako gives Newton a happy smile that suggests that for his safety he shall not protest. He sits, bouncy for someone who’s had three hours sleep. Hermann almost snarls at him, but the only chair left around the table is the one next to Newton so he has to take it. “Just, make it good, please. Hermie here’s been playing Mozart all day.”

“It’s Doctor Gottlieb,” snaps Hermann, “and there is nothing wrong with Mozart. You’re merely too pretentious to enjoy anything older than Lady Gaga.” He almost shudders as he says the name.

“Pretentious?” cries Newton. “Me? What about you?” Hermann raises an eyebrow and dares him to continue on with that sentence, but Newton’s here to relax, not to fight, and they’ve been told more than enough times to keep their bickering away from the cards.

“Pft, whatever, grandpa,” Newton says, leaning back in his seat and taking the cards dealt to him. “You keep your books and your record players. Or do you have a phonograph? I bet you have a phonograph somewhere.”

“I’ll thank you to remember that today I spent my time recalibrating the hologram while you spun around on your chair and cut things up with knives. I believe Jack the Ripper was accused of doing something like that.”

“Yeah, ‘cos you would know.”

Hermann leans close and hisses in Old German, “You think I kept going through the last millennium in the hopes of seeing your pathetic face? I’m in love with science as much as you are, and am as loathe as you to remain behind the times. I merely focus my interest on different areas.”

Newton speaks in English without thinking, breathing out the words as though they’ve only been waiting in his lungs for the opportune moment. “I think I love you.”

Hermann blinks, suddenly thrown. Everyone stares, and then Hermann gets it together and leans back in his seat, restraightening his cards in his hand. “You better. It’s been long enough.”

“Mako, wanna start up the music?” asks Tendo into the silence.

 

It’s been a long, horrid week after another long, horrid kaiju fight, and Newton’s got new samples. He hasn’t spoken to Hermann in about a day. He has spoken. He hasn’t shut up, actually, but he hasn’t spoken to Hermann.

Hermann would be worried, except there was a kaiju attack and his numbers didn’t hold up. He’s trying to fix it and it’s not working, nothing’s working and he can’t remember when he last slept or ate or showered or anything.

Newton’s still talking and Hermann needs.

He just needs.

He presses his hand to his face and smudges his glasses, and he would growl except he cannot summon the energy.

He needs to get out of there. He presses print and launches himself up out of his chair to collect the papers as they roll out, hot and sticky with ink.

“I’m going to see the Marshall.”

Newton ignores him in favour of continuing to talk to himself. Hermann strides away, a little irritated at being ignored.

The Marshall takes the papers with scarcely a glance at them, and places them immediately on a pile on the desk. Hermann frowns. He could have just as easily put them there himself, or emailed them over. Then he remembers his intention was to leave the lab, and at least in that he’s succeeded. He’s not sure where to go now, though. Perhaps to the kitchens for a cup of tea, though he has tea in the lab and perhaps there’s blood there. He cannot decide if he needs it. Perhaps he does, or perhaps he needs tea, or perhaps he needs sleep.  

He’s still standing with a frown on his face when Pentecost breaks through his dumb silence.

“Doctor Gottlieb!” He jolts. “You have been standing there for two minutes saying nothing. When did you last sleep?”

“?” is all Hermann can manage.

“Have you eaten recently?”

“Yes,” he says. He remembers that with certainty. The fridge has enough blood to last them until next Tuesday. It was Thursday last he checked, which means it’s ticking over into Friday now, or… He isn’t sure.

“Go out,” says Pentecost.

“Pardon?”

“Leave the Shatterdome. It’s Saturday night.”

“Sir, with all due respect,” begins Hermann, grateful that at least one mystery has been solved, though he does wonder what happened to the rest of his Saturday. And his Friday. “There are many things that need to be done and I do not believe that going out is going to do them any good. I am going to return to work.”

“You play cards with Tendo.” Hermann stares. He does, but that’s not relevant to anything at all.

“Yes, sir,” he manages.

“Tendo and others of LOCCENT are out tonight, at a place I believe is called Collision. You will take Newton and you will go there, and that is an order. You will have a drink or two, and you will remain out for at least three hours.” He holds Hermann’s gaze. “Is that clear? I do not want to see either Newton or you in the laboratory for all of Sunday, and I mean all of Sunday, barring the central path to reach the door to your rooms. Is that understood?”

“Sir, again with all due respect -”

“With all due respect, Doctor Gottlieb,” interrupts Pentecost, “both yourself and Doctor Geiszler are working far too hard. You are the only two staff we have in K-Science, and both you and Doctor Geiszler are stretching yourselves thin. I know -” he interrupts over whatever outburst Hermann had poised on his tongue, “- about your assistance to J-Tech, and I am grateful, as are we all.”

“Newton’s been working for medical,” says Hermann, sullenly.

“I am well aware. You will take the night off. If you prefer I can find someone to escort you off base to ensure you comply with orders.”

“… Yes sir,” says Hermann. He wavers under the force of Pentecost’s glare and leaves as quickly as he can.

 

Newton is nearly exactly where he left him, still talking to himself. Perhaps the Marshall had a point, Hermann thinks.

“Newton!” he says. Newton does not look up. “Doctor Geiszler!”

“Dude, it’s Newt.”

“Newton,” he drawls, unwilling to stoop to that level of address, “we are going out.”

That is enough to snap Newton’s attention away from alien entrails. “What? You, going out? It’s not my birthday and I don’t think you ever had one. I think you just grew up out of the ground. Explains the stick in your ass,” he mutters, returning to goo.

“Newton! There is a bar that I wish to go to. You are coming with me.”

“A bar?”

“Yes.”

“You, at a bar?”

“I am over a thousand years old, I have frequented bars before.”

“Yeah, in, like, the twelve hundreds.”

“If you don’t want to come with me I am not going to force you,” baits Hermann, and Newton shoots up out of his chair.

“Dude, no way are you going _out_ drinking for the first time in a century and leaving me at home. Let me get my coat.” He looks at his hands, frantic, looking around as if he plans to wipe the goo on himself if need be.

“I suggest you shower,” says Hermann. “I am going to put on different pants.”

 

 

Alcohol does not affect humans and vampires the same way.

It’s more, if humans are bookshelves in a research library and vampires are coffee tables, and alcohol is the books, that’s what it does to vampires.

This is precisely the reason Hermann avoids it. He feels scattered and strange and buried and over-read but also somehow unwanted, and he feels like someone has put their feet on him.

Someone has put their feet on him. It’s Newton. Newton’s feet in his lap; Newton is leaning back in the booth with his legs stretched out and his feet are in Hermann’s lap. He looks at the feet and he looks at Newton, and he wants to kiss the toes of these boots so he pushes them off and he goes to find someone to drink.

He goes to find some _thing_ to drink.

He finds Tendo.

Tendo has a drink so Hermann takes the drink and he drinks it, because he reasons that’s far better than drinking Tendo. He is both very, very drunk and extremely sober. Vampires can’t forget anything; they can’t get black-out drunk.

He isn’t sure if he has hands anymore. He looks down to check.

“How you feelin’ brother?” asks Tendo. His hand is hovering. He wants to slap Hermann on the back but he also does not want to slap Hermann on the back. Hermann has not been touched nicely in a very long time, so he gives Tendo the sort of smile he reserves for his meals. The hand touches his back. It’s warm, and he leans against it, lets the arm sling over his shoulders.

“I am time,” he says. “I think I am infinite.”

“Sure you are,” laughs Tendo. There is a woman, dark hair dark eyes dark lipstick, and she is laughing along even though she cannot possibly hear over the music. She is laughing because Tendo is laughing. Hermann can hear the shifting of cells within her body, the rushing of neurotransmitters through synapses and the shuddering of valves in veins. Or, perhaps he is very drunk and his imagination has been kicked into overdrive. But he knows this woman wants Tendo. Tendo knows it, too. He leans close into Hermann’s ear so that he doesn’t have to shout.

“Why don’t you go back to Newton?”

Hermann sags against the half-embrace. It’s very nice. Very warm. “Newton hates me.”

“He doesn’t. In fact,” Tendo leans close and even over the beat of the music and the rush of conversation and the heat of Hermann’s own life gripping hard at his throat, Hermann can hear the heartbeat of the human. It’s fast and steady, and he wants it. He turns, feels Tendo’s lips brush his ear. “A little birdy told me he likes you.” Tendo breathes out and Hermann shivers. He wants.

He wants to turn and sink his teeth into that throat and he wants to take Tendo into the bathrooms and blow him and he wants to find out what Tendo was drinking before because he smells like lime or mint or something delicious and Hermann wants it inside of him.

Or perhaps that’s his own mouth that Hermann is smelling.

Hermann did just have a drink.

“He really likes you,” says Tendo.

He pushes Hermann away, towards Newton, and Hermann forgets all about Tendo.

Newton is sitting with his head back against the booth and one arm stretched out with his fingers curled loosely around a half-empty glass. Someone is beside him and talking to him, but Newton’s not really listening. Newton has his eyes half open and he is looking at Hermann.

There are lights and there are people at the bar, there is noise and talking and there is so much all around. Newton is looking at Hermann.

Hermann swallows and sobers.

Well, he does not actually become sober. But he feels suddenly less like time itself and a lot more like a little boy who’s not seen the sun for too many years.

“Newton,” he says. He does not bother actually walking across the space between them to say it to him directly. “Come with me,” he says.

He turns and leaves, and nods to Tendo on his way out. He does not check to see if Newton is behind him. If he is not, Hermann will go back to base feeling dejected and awful, and he’ll drink a pint of blood and fall asleep with his shoes on. And if Newton is behind him…

Newton is a variable Hermann has never learned to calculate for. He has no idea what will happen if Newton is behind him.

The door clangs behind him.

The alleyway is empty. The air is cold. There is no one else here except him. He fumbles for a cigarette, fingers unsteady from the alcohol, and has just managed to grasp one when the door clicks open and a rush of hot drunken air crashes into him. There’s laughter, the heavy beat of music, and then the door closes again.

Newton is there, shrugging into his jacket and grinning a little lopsidedly.

Hermann puts the cigarette away.

“Where to?”

Hermann’s hearing is fuzzy and everything seems strange and distant with Newton here so close. He picks the first sound he can make out. “The beach,” he says.

“Right on. Lead the way, old man.”

 

 

The beach was a terrible idea. There is sand, polluted and foul, and there is a cold wind and there is water and it is gross.

Everything is gross and he says as much to Newton.

“Aw, don’t be like that. It’s our night off! Our first night in, must be three years for me.”

“You took Christmas off last year.”

“Yeah, well! You took that Tuesday off last spring.” Newton sticks out his tongue.

“I am well aware of what time I have taken off,” says Hermann. “I am not the one here prone to exaggeration.”

Newton snorts. After so many years alive measuring time by weekends and holidays seems a bit pointless; neither of them have thought to take a weekend off in a very long time, and they are not starting now. They are both thinking of the work they have to do, running over and over ideas and possibilities.

Newton suddenly jolts himself out of his own reverie. “Dude, that’s water.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t been to the beach in years.”

“This is hardly a beach,” Hermann criticises. It’s not, it’s just a narrow sliver of water meeting a messy section of sand before the coast is pulled up into docks and construction again.

“Don’t care,” says Newton. He’s suddenly sitting down and taking off his shoes, a complicated process at the best of times that now requires a fair amount of swearing. “You’re coming with me.”

Hermann sighs, but he cannot find it within himself to refuse Newton so he casts around for something to lean on so he can undo his shoes. He goes to move and Newton’s hand catches on the hem of his trousers. Hermann stares down at Newton. They’re trapped for a moment, caught in each other’s gaze.

“Let me,” says Newton, licking his lips and shifting so that his fingers can tug at the laces. He helps Hermann off with his socks, and Hermann ignores the cool press of rough fingers over the smooth line of his ankle.

They step down onto the sand that is not really sand, and the waves roll onto the beach a little tiredly under stars that are cold and uncaring that this planet is being crushed under the weight of creatures from another world.

Hermann feels infinite. He feels finite. He feels stretched out and very old and too stupidly young and childish to understand anything at all.

Newton falls over.

“Come on, Hermann, sit down. Take a load off.” Newton chuckles at his own obscenity, and Hermann shuffles his weight around so that he can sit beside Newton with at least a little dignity still. His head feels heavy, and he moves it gingerly in case it became unattached since he last checked.

“Why don’t we ever do this?” asks Newton.

“Because the beach is horrid,” says Hermann, “and most often polluted with the blood of kaijus.”

“Kaiju. It’s plural.”

“I appreciate that your grammar is atrocious in all things except alien monsters,” comments Hermann. He considers. “Primarily Latin. Your Latin is foul.”

“Yeah? Well, you suck at East Germanic languages.”

“I will not apologise for faults of my birth,” scowls Hermann, but it’s fond. “In any case, Vandalic is not essential to science, and Latin is.”

The waves catch on a piece of plastic, and they both listen to water crinkling over it.

“Still,” says Newton. “We should do this more often. Maybe not the beach. But go out.”

“It is probably healthy.”

“Get Tendo and them to play cards more often.”

“Remember to go when we are invited,” agrees Hermann. They turn and look at each other, and drunk as he is (they both are) Hermann feels good. The world is crumbling along its seams and probably 2022 will never come, but Hermann can’t imagine the world ending in any other way.

Him, here, with Newton on a horrid beach under dead stars.

He realises he’s been staring at Newton, and he’d turn away, read the warning sign on the dock beyond them or pick out the stars above, except Newton hasn’t looked away either.

They reach for each other in the same moment, hands touching in midair and pulling them together.

Hermann has imagined this.

They have both imagined this.

Hermann has imagined leaning down and saying “my apologies if this is untoward”; Newton has imagined just fucking kissing him until Hermann shoves him away and never talks to him again.

It’s neither of those things.

It’s just a kiss, just lips on lips and their eyes fluttering closed, fingers tangled together and cold sand beneath them. They pull apart, perfectly in sync, and look at each other. Then Hermann shifts and moves, pushes Newton down onto the sand and kisses him again. It is strange to feel the weight of a person beneath him, to feel the solid ribcage and the shift of material that is not his own clothes.

But it is not strange to be kissing Newton. It is no stranger than walking into a library in Italy and seeing him talking with students over the severe line of his then very-modern eye-glasses. Kissing him is like stealing his coffee or pulling him away from that fight on the streets of Barcelona.

“Herms,” whispers Newton, voice muffled by Hermann’s mouth. “Can we,” his words are swallowed by Hermann’s tongue.

“Yes,” Hermann says. He does not need to think about it. He wants this. He knows he does. “Yes,” he repeats.

They pull on their shoes frantically, fingers hardly leaving each other. Newton uses the excuse of sand all down Hermann’s jacket to run his hands over his back.

Newton’s never touched Hermann so thoroughly, and there are still clothes between them. They have only kissed. They have scarcely even used tongue, thinks Newton, giddy and eager and he pulls Hermann roughly against him to kiss him thoroughly. There’s not enough hair for him to grab and pull so he uses Hermann’s clothes to bring him down to his height, to hold him there and kiss him hard.

“We’re not doing this here,” growls Hermann. He pulls away. Newton tries to crowd close against him but Hermann glares at him. “Don’t,” he snaps.

Newton looks at him in alarm, but Hermann only repeats, “We’re not doing this here.”

Oh. Oh, Newton opens his mouth and he closes it, and he wants to kiss Hermann again just for the implication of what he says. He even moves to do it, but Hermann holds up his cane and blocks Newton.

“So help me,” says Hermann, “I will not be having you whine for the next century that I was too impatient and so it happened here.”

Their skin is tingling. Newton thinks if he moves his arm he’ll feel all the hairs stand up and the tattooed kaiju start to shift at the closeness to Hermann. He doesn’t think he’d mind being shoved against the rough concrete wall and his jeans pulled down to his knees, glasses scraping on the wall and everything sudden fast rough and overwhelming.

His fingers tingle.

He has only taken two steps and he doesn’t think he’ll make it back to the Shatterdome.

 

They do. It’s close, and the taxi driver glares at them, but both of them have had their fair share of humans irritated at their antics so they pay him no mind and each sit squished against their respective sides of the car. The distance between them makes them ache.

They make it back to the Shatterdome and even though they can remember the code and have their cards it takes them several goes before they can swipe the card and get the doors open for them.

Hermann starts off down the corridor, but Newton’s paused and thinking.

“Hermann, you don’t… You’re drunk,” says Newton, rushing after him and pulling him to a stop. “I’ve wanted you since the Stonehenge but if you don’t want this we can at least _pretend_ this never happened.”

Hermann’s response is to only grab Newton’s tie and pull him in. “You weren’t alive during the Stonehenge,” he says. “And I want to do this now, and again, and again.”

“Yeah, but,” Newton tries to protest again. He’s lived too long to want to destroy the only constant in his life. He’s never understood the now-or-never urgency of humans.

“Again,” says Hermann, kissing Newton on the corner of his mouth, “and again,” his lips move to Newton’s jaw, rough with stubble, “and again.” The lips are on his throat, and Newton cannot hold in a whine. “I have wanted to do this for years.”

“Okay,” says Newton. He isn’t sure what he’s saying okay to, only that there’s lips on his neck and he doesn’t want them to go away. “Okay,” he repeats.

 

Up in security Arrafah looks at the cameras, bored at three am. There’s not much going on, but then she spies movement in the corner of one camera. Two people. The scientists, if that giant coat is anything to go by.

One of them is pushing the other against the corridor wall, hands in hair, hips pressed together. She grins to herself. It’s nice to see people finding each other, especially now at the end of the world.

 

 

Hermann wakes up alone and not at all displeased with this. His head hurts, and the rest of him hurts, and there is sand between his toes. He lies back in bed and stretches out to find the sheets beside him cool. There’s water next to the bed, and blood that’s warm, and he drinks both and then brushes his teeth before dressing. He feels comfortable, relaxed and calm in a way he hasn’t in a while.

It’s not silent in the bedroom, and even over the sound of running water as he spits out red-tinged toothpaste and rinses his mouth out he can hear noise.

Newton’s got his music on, and it’s loud.

It’s always bloody loud. Hermann considers yelling at him to turn it down as per usual. He doesn’t want this, this one night, to alter anything, but he finds that he doesn’t have the usual passive-aggressive emotion within him. He decides to leave it be. There’s always the chance that Newton will say it was only one night, and there’s always tomorrow to yell at him for any number of sins.

Hermann doesn’t think that Newton will tell him that they’re not going to touch ever again, but there is the possibility. Today or in twenty years. Newton will get tired of him. Of - he looks at where his face would be in the mirror - of all of this. Of his leg and his face and his clothes and his mathematics and his habits and particular manners.

Today or twenty years, and as he does not look at himself in the mirror and touches his face to determine if he needs to shave he wonders what his choice will be. He could turn down Newton first. Now, in fact, he could walk out and apologise. He was drunk, no matter how much he meant what he said he could lie now. He could say that he did not mean it. Say he wants this to be over. Suffer through seeing Newton every day until this horrid war is over and he can go back to seeing Newton once every hundred years.

He limps back into his bedroom and gets dressed. It’s a question that sits poorly on his shoulders. If he were wise, he thinks…

No.

He thinks for a moment of what his father would say, and crushes that thought immediately. Lars has no place in this equation. There is only Newton, and there is Hermann.

He walks out into the kitchen to wash out the mug and pauses as the music filters through the open door.

Newton’s singing along, of course. He always does. He must have the lyrics to half a million songs locked away in his head, now.

“Cause you make me feel like!” Newton’s not a terrible singer, but he prefers to shout rather than sing. “I’ve been locked out of heaven!”

Hermann finishes washing the mug and dries it, and tentatively goes to the door to see if his suspicions are going to be confirmed. See, Newton likes to dance. He really, really likes to dance.

“Cause your sex takes me to paradise!” he shouts, sitting down hard on his chair and spinning across the lab to reach something he left on the other bench. “Yeah, your sex takes me to paradise! And it shows,” he bounces up and dances back to his desk. “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Cos you make me feeeelll like! I’ve been locked out of - Hermann!” He sits down in his chair with a sudden clump, somewhat embarrassed, as though Hermann’s never caught him in similar situations before. “Morning. Did I wake you?”

“No,” says Hermann. He walks to his side of the lab. “Nonetheless, you’ll turn that down.”

“No, I won’t. Sleeping with me doesn’t get you special favours. Not in the lab. Well,” he considers, and corrects himself. “Not in that context in the lab.”

“If you’re suggesting sex in the laboratory you’ll have to allow me to recover from last night.”

Newton just stares, and Hermann stares back, a little worried that he’s perhaps broken Newton.

“Uh,” he says, and that pulls Newton out of wherever he went.

“Seriously, dude? You’re not gonna call that a one-night stand and leave it at that?” He looks hopeful and bothered by his hope, as though Hermann’s about to pick it up and slap him in the face with it and laugh before repeating that he needs to turn down his music.

Instead, Hermann blushes and does not entirely meet his eye. It was easier to admit when he was drunk. He’s not sure that he’s entirely admitted it to himself before. He wants Newton. “I believe we both recall what I said.”

Newton spends a moment processing that. “…Is this a thing-thing or just a thing?”

“Your syntax is as confusing as ever,” Hermann scowls. “I will admit to feelings, if that’s what you intended to ask.” He’s nervous, though, scarcely hidden behind the way his fingers tap on the edge of his cane and he watches Newton carefully from beneath lowered eyelashes. He wants this to be okay, he realises that all in a rush, he wants this to be okay and he wants it to be forever. He’s not just asking for now, he’s not just asking for something that lasts until the end of the war. The air goes out of him while Newton is still processing.

He’s glad that Newton is processing, of course. It’s not a small thing. But the only sound is the next song playing too loud and it’s obnoxious background to the emotion of the moment.

Then, finally, thankfully, Newton grins. “Awesome. Good. Me too. Yeah.” He narrows his eyes. “But I’m not turning down my music.”

Hermann wonders if he should cross the ten feet between them to kiss Newton. It seems the sort of moment that requires a kiss, but there’s distance and Newton isn’t moving. He decides not to. There’s plenty of time for that later he realises, feeling a little giddy for it.

“I have no reason to believe that our relationship should alter so significantly,” he says, and promptly turns his back on Newton and works on getting JAX-I started. 

 

 

 

The Marshall tends to make his visits known either days before or absolutely unannounced. He most often walks into a near warzone, because even as friends Hermann and Newton are still going to argue for every hour of every day, but on this occasion it’s not an argument he walks into. Not at all.

It’s been two weeks since that weekend at the bar and Newton’s been thinking about what Hermann said the morning after.

About lab sex.

Newton’s had sex.

Newton’s had a lot of sex. He’s eager and cares about his partner only enough that they’re a decent enough person that he wants to put his hands on. He’s had sex with men and he’s had sex with women and he’s had sex with couples and he’s had sex in alleys and he’s had sex in the Vatican and he’s had sex on a ship and he’s been paid for sex and paid for sex. If it exists he’s probably done it at least once.

Lab sex is something he’s done.

He knows he’s into it.

He knows he’s into Hermann.

(He’s so into Hermann. He’s scarcely sleeping. He’s more scattered than usual, he’s drifting off, he spends ages just watching the guy scrawl numbers over his blackboard. Newton thought he had been in love before. He’s never felt like this.)

Newton’s into sex and he’s into lab sex and he’s into Hermann so much it hurts.

“Hey Hermann.” Hermann doesn’t turn. “Hermann. Hermie. Herms. Herm.”

“What?”

Newton cannot remember when that exasperated growl started turning him on.

“You mentioned sex in the laboratory.”

The chalk scrapes like nails down the board.

“You are interrupting my progress on modifying the weight-ratio of the Wei’s limb movement because you want an orgasm?”

“No.”

“Good.” Hermann resumes writing.

“Sex isn’t about orgasms. It is. But. It’s more.” The chalk stops moving again. Newton swallows and tries to keep going. He’s never been good at this aspect of sex. “I’m sitting over here all alone and I want to touch you. Please?”

“I had no idea you were such a romantic.”

Newton swallows. He’s not. He’s very staunchly not a romantic. But, “I think I am. For you. You’re ruining me, dude.”

“You cannot spring this sort of thing on me,” says Hermann. “I do not function like you.”

“Sorry, dude,” says Newton, and he sounds actually apologetic. Hermann sighs, takes off his glasses and rubs a thumb along one eyebrow.

“Give me twenty minutes, will you?” He resumes writing again.

“You’re gonna be raring to go in twenty minutes doing math?” exclaims Newton.

“I will not be going anywhere anytime if you keep interrupting me,” snaps Hermann, but it’s fond, and he tosses a small smile over his shoulder to tell Newton that he doesn’t mind, not really.

And so, in twenty-five minutes time, the board is crushed against Newton’s cheek and Hermann’s taken his glasses away so they don’t get mushed. He can taste chalk on his tongue and Hermann’s not even undone his own pants yet. Newton’s got his jeans down at his knees and Hermann’s got his fingers in Newton’s ass and nails dragging down his back.

Newton has no shame.

If he likes something he’ll make it known and he’s never apologised for wanting something.

“Hermann,” he groans, and he’s rewarded by a sharp, almost painful twist. The friction’s delicious and he moans, loud and mouth open against the equations on the board. “Please,” he adds.

There’s suddenly lips on his ear and down his neck and teeth in his shoulder and fingernails on his hips. He can feel Hermann’s cold knuckles brushing against his arse as Hermann uses his other hand to undo his pants.

Newton’s got his shirt off and his jeans around his knees and he shuffles, trying to widen his stance, trying to give them both the best angle. Hermann’s hand is hard on his hip refusing to let him move.

Right before Hermann’s pressing against him Newton finds words on his tongue and lets them fall off. “You can bite me.”

Everything stops.

“Pardon me?”

“If you want. You can bite me.”

The hand on his hips moves, runs over his back, over the kaiju tattooed there. “Where?”

“Bonesquid’s somewhere around there.” Hermann’s hand moves, and Newton shivers. “Yeah, there. Onibaba’s close.”

“You want me to bite kaiju?” he asks, horrified, as if Newton thinks he loves the creatures so much he wants to imagine he is drinking them alive.

“I want you to bite _me_.”

“I know that, idiot,” mutters Hermann. His cock is hard and brushing Newton’s arse, and it’s hard to think like this. “Won’t that damage them?”

“No. I don’t think. I don’t care. Please? If you like. If not. I would really like you to have sex with me now. Either way.” The hand runs down his spine, from the kaiju that attacked Shanghai down over an expanse of fire and yellow smoke swirling over skin.

Hermann doesn’t answer, he only moves his hands and holds Newton steady while he pushes inside.

Newton’s lost to the feeling of Hermann inside of him, and this, this never loses its appeal. Every time is the best time, every time is perfect, this sensation of letting someone in like this, of feeling them let go of that control they have to keep - everyone has to keep. That facade of politeness, reasoned emotions tempered with propriety, it’s all lost here and it’s always, every time, absolutely beautiful.

Hermann sinks his teeth into the soft flesh below Newton’s shoulder blade and he gives a loud cry, grinding back into Hermann and reaching blindly with one hand to find Hermann’s body and pull him in close. He’s crying, maybe, from the chalkdust in his eyes, and he’s close and it’s so good he doesn’t want it to end. He can’t decide if he should try to make Hermann drag it out or finish it now. He can feel his blood being sucked from the wound in his back and he whines at the sensation.

He’s so close.

The whole world is hot and the Apocalypse is a million years away.

“What in God’s name is going on here?” comes the shout.

It’s startling and if Newton weren’t shoved against the blackboard he would have fallen over.

Hermann pulls his teeth from where they are wedged inside Newton’s skin, and Newton makes a small noise at the loss.

Pentecost stares at the two of them, blood running down Newton’s back and smeared over Hermann’s face. Hermann’s teeth are still sharp and obviously inhuman.

“Both of you, get dressed. I will see you in my office in five minutes.” He turns and nearly punches the door open. It closes with a deafening crash behind him.

Newton wants to talk, wants to reassure Hermann but Hermann is not talking. Hermann is nearly shaking. He respects the Marshall, and he’s terrified of what he’s going to be facing in that office in five minutes.

When Newton tries to touch his hand Hermann shakes him off and goes to change his shirt. Newton just pulls his back on over the blood and then puts his jacket over the top to hide the red.

 

The door closes behind them. The Marshall is sitting stern behind his desk but there are no chairs for the two scientists.

Vampires.

The two vampires.

Newton looks sidelong at Hermann, who is looking at a point above the Marshall’s head and pretending as though Newton doesn’t exist. Newton’s still pretty horny and his body chemistry is, in a word, confused. In two words: extremely confused.

The Marshall’s glare is not helping him calm down at all.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” says the Marshall, after two minutes of silence. “I understand I owe Mr Choi an apology.”

Newton looks at Pentecost sharply. “He told you?”

“How irresponsible do you think he is?” snaps Pentecost. “You drink blood.” He looks about to vomit.

“Well, yes. But I haven’t killed anyone since, like, the early 1900s, and Hermann here probably hasn’t ever, at least not on purpose. There’s the tricky issue of -”

“Doctor Geiszler.” Newton snaps to attention. Pentecost uses that voice only when he is beyond angry.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

The silence drags out, Newton afraid of what he might blather out if he opens his mouth even a crack. “I have no idea what to do in this situation.”

“Sir, if I may,” says Hermann. Pentecost gives him a sharp nod. “Do nothing. We have harmed no one. The only irritation is to Medical, from whom we have been, ah, pilfering supplies.”

Pentecost narrows his eyes, having not made that connection. “You.”

“Sorry?” offers Newton. Both Hermann and Pentecost glare at him, and he snaps his mouth shut.

“Yes, us,” says Hermann. “But between that and the alternative, I think you’ll forgive us.”

“I can’t have you in the Shatterdome.”

“Can’t you?” asks Hermann. His voice is soft, convincing, nothing like the shrieking argument Newton wants to unleash. “We have been doing good work, and you need us. Every willing body, and one could argue we are more invested in the future of this earth than you.”

“And what if you are to go… rogue?” Pentecost’s eyes flick between them. Newton decides to offer something.

“Fire. We don’t like fire.”

“Newton!” cries Hermann.

“What?”

“That is -” He switches to German. “We do not divulge that kind of information.”

“He needs the protection.” Returning to English Newton gives Pentecost a tense smile. “If you need to, fire is the way to go.” Pentecost looks at Hermann and sees how bothered he is by the prospect. “It’s a secret,” adds Newton. “Really I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No,” growls Hermann. “You should not have.”

Pentecost looks between them. “Fire?” Newton nods. “What else do I need to know?” He says it carefully, conveying a particular understanding of what information there is and what information is meant for his ears. Newton decides to take the lead.

“We need invitations to enter rooms that belong to people - including the bedrooms here. Dorm rooms are confusing and generally painful. Sun is bad. Warmth is good. Fire is bad. We’re a bit like lizards.” Hermann interrupts.

“What Newton is so crudely describing is our limited ability to synthesise our own body heat. Unfortunately his kaiju remains require cool temperatures to avoid decay, so we must suffer.”

“But you are managing.”

“Yes,” says Newton. “Blood and heat and no sun. Human blood.” He winces. “Sorry.”

“I will sort something out with Medical. And I will never again see you doing what I just saw you doing. You have bedrooms for a reason, and they are not so far from the lab that I can see any reason for a repeat performance. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” says Newton, while Hermann tacks on a sir. Hermann salutes, and Newton copies, belated and awkward and realising that this man has a lot of power and he’s not using it to hurt them.

 

 

Natalie is packing her bags and she is leaving.

It’s a few weeks into 2022 and apparently no one cares that Natalie is necessary.

Here is the official reasoning: they’ve paid the K-Scientists and newly-christened xenobiologists and the kaiju keep coming. So, as an experiment, why not fire all the experts and see what good that does!

Newton does not take this news well. More specifically, Newton yells a bit in Japanese.

Actually, he yells a lot in Japanese, until someone who speaks Japanese (Mako) walks past the lab and asks him what language that is.

He walks with Natalie up to the helipad, and waves her off trying to look someone less then enraged, and then stamps back to the basement and throws the clipboard with her departure information across the room. It hits something with a clang and falls to the floor, and Newton stands in the middle of the lab, defeated. It’s the end of the world and nobody cares. They’re alone and fighting and he doesn’t understand.

He hits a note on his bongo drums and erases his etch-a-sketch and slumps against the piano.

He needs music for this.

He needs very loud, very angry music.

Hermann wakes up without any idea of what has gone on bar the usual disaster of moods following a kaiju attack and discovers that he, too, is down a scientist and she’s already gone. His bother at that is overridden by the state of the laboratory.

Newton’s side is clean. It is pristine. Everything is stacked and ordered and labelled. The maze of tables have been rearranged neatly. The floor is swept. There isn’t any manga _anywhere_.

The music is loud and Newton is sitting at a desk doing nothing at all.

He’s not even playing Commander Keen, which is his usual go-to in times of despair. He’s just sitting with his back to Hermann.

“Newton,” says Hermann. Newton does not move. “Newton!”

Newton’s shoulders slump a little.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t,” Newton gestures at the specimens. “I’ve tried. I don’t know.” He looks at the roof, and back down at his hands. His voice is very quiet. “I don’t know what to do. We lost two pilots, and I can’t figure out anything new.” Hermann takes a step but Newton’s shoulders stiffen and Hermann feels the rejection before it is given. “Please leave me alone,” says Newton.

Hermann stands for a moment, not sure if he should obey, but he can feel Newton readying a barrage of anger to send him out, and he knows Newton will mean none of it and it will only hurt them both. He goes to LOCCENT so that Newton can be left alone.

At breakfast Hermann is called to Pentecost’s office, where Pentecost looks impeccable as ever and two seconds away from an enormous rage, as ever.

“Newton has not filed his report on the kaiju that took down Coyote Tango.”

“Sir,” Hermann begins, but he has no idea how to say, Newton’s horribly depressed and might take a week to even think about reports.

“I went to see him and he was shivering. I understand your kind,” his face twists painfully, “are not very good at producing your own body heat. I have no idea what a half-starved,” he grits his teeth and pushes the word out, “vampire is like, and no desire to find out. Feed him, get him going again. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t need the particulars, I only need him up and running again. We in Hong Kong are part of a dying breed and you and he are part of the last defence. There are no others, do you understand me?”

“Not quite, sir.”

Pentecost looks away, struggling with his words. “One life to save many is a balance I am well acquainted with.”

“Sir?” blurts Hermann. He cannot believe - will not believe that the Marshall is giving permission for _this._ In any case, “Newt does not like that style of eating. He would, I believe, sooner starve himself.”

Pentecost sags a little in relief, a movement almost imperceptible to the eye. Hermann wonders if the Marshall ever lets his emotion show as more than a glimmer. He is a stone. He has to be, with so much resting on him, but there has to be someone. For his health, at least, if not his happiness.

“I have managed to procure some of the kaiju remains. They will be here this evening. Please have him sorted by then.”

 

Newton’s vacated the lab by the time Hermann returns, and the door to his room is locked. Hermann knocks several times, and threatens to find a drill or a soldering iron or whatever he needs to open up the damn door.

The hinges grind.

“How have you survived this long if you cannot break and enter?”

“By spending fewer nights in jail than you,” Hermann retorts. “May I come in?”

The room is dark but both of them can see well enough without any light. Newton’s in old boxers and a shirt so worn that whatever pattern was on it has faded into oblivion. It’s very cold, and Newton is shivering.

It’s a curse. Immortality is a curse and a blessing but this, this is a curse. Forever cold and always unable to go out into the sun.

“Shower,” says Hermann. Newton doesn’t move. Hermann shoves him with his hand. “Go!” He goes to the fridge and finds it properly stocked. Newton only moved a step, and Hermann sighs, leaves the blood where it is and goes to start the shower for him. It’s not as hot as it should be in this situation but it’s good enough. He strips Newton with perfunctory quickness and pushes him under the water.

“Stay,” he says, and goes to heat up the blood.

When he comes back Newton is still in the shower but curled on the floor, and he’s sobbing.

Hermann goes to him, pausing only long enough to take off his jacket and sweater. He wraps one arm around him and with the other lifts the mug and brings it Newton’s mouth. “Drink,” he urges. “You’ll feel better, I promise.”

“No, I won’t,” says Newton, tilting his head away from the drink. “It’s always like this. It’s good good good! And then it’s bad and it’s so bad. I’m going to be like this forever and I can’t - I can’t pick myself up. I can’t do this all the time. It’s exhausting and I,” he chokes on a sob and bends his head to his knees. “I can’t. I’m sorry. You should go. I’m awful and you don’t need me.”

Hermann brings the blood back towards Newton. “Please. Just drink,” he says.

Newton shakes his head, still staring at the tiles of the shower, and Hermann’s clothes are soaking wet and water’s splashing into the blood.

“Newton, you’re strong. You’ve done this before and you’ll do this again, but this time I’m here and I’ve got you. Please,” he says, again. “For me, at least.” He lifts one of Newton’s arms and wraps his hand around the mug. Newton stares at it blankly for some seconds before bringing it to his mouth. Hermann relaxes a little when he sees him swallow.

“They keep dying,” says Newton in a hollow voice. “I’m meant to save them but they keep dying.” He curls up closer to Hermann. “I like humans.”

“I know you do,” says Hermann.

“I don’t mean like how you like them,” says Newton, stumbling fast over his sentences, mouth not caught up to the idea of forming words. “I mean, I like how they live. They make things and they’re so in love! All the time with everything. They do stupid little things and everything matters oh so very much, even though they don’t live for very long.” Hermann tightens his grip on Newton, worried that he’s going to fall apart into some level of anxiety attack, but Newton only swallows and keeps talking. “They’re brilliant, all of them, and I don’t want them to die. I really don’t. If I could I’d pilot a jaeger. I wanted to, you know.”

“You couldn’t,” says Hermann. “And you’re better off here. You’ve been with biology since it was born. No one else can do this.”

“And I’m failing.”

“You’re not,” snaps Hermann. “Don’t you dare say that. You’re not and you know it, you’re just being irrationally negative right now. So listen to me. Trust me. You are brilliant, you are a genius, and you are the only person who will ever have the guts and the gumption to help this planet survive. You are going to finish that blood and you are going to put on several layers of clothes, and I’m going to make you some hot chocolate which you will drink before it gets cold. And then you are going to come out and put on some music and get some space ready for new samples.”

Newton sags. “I’m tired of this.”

“I know,” Hermann says gently.

They sit in the silence of the shower for several minutes. Eventually Newton shifts, drinks the rest of the blood in several gulps. He lets the shower rinse out the mug, and he swallows the watery blood before pressing it back into Hermann’s hands.

“I’m awesome, I’m a rockstar, and I can do this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Alright,” says Newton. He helps Hermann up and tries to apologise. Hermann shuts him up with a glare, and goes to make hot chocolate. On the way he finds his tablet and sends a quick email to Pentecost to let him know that Newton’s up and about again.

The samples come. The music is loud. Hermann shouts without thinking about it and thankfully Newton shouts back with just as much irritation. They argue. It’s beautiful.

 

 

The music clicks over and Hermann scarcely notices.

It’s 2022 and it’s a Friday and he is scarily used to Newton’s music. He finishes making his tea, dropping the teabag into the bin and walking to the door. It’s nearly 7pm and the lab is colder than usual, colder than it needs to be to keep the kaiju okay. He lifts the cup to his lips without drinking it, letting it warm his lips. The cup is porcelain from China, and he uses it to drink tea made from bags. It grates on him every day, but there are no other options. (He also has a teacup from eighteenth century France, half a tea set gifted to him by a man in Spain, and various mugs from various universities over the more recent years.)

He walks to the door and pushes it open with his toe, concentrating on the warmth from the tea and comes to a dead stop at what he sees.

“What, pray tell, are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” cries Newton. “I’m dancing!”

“That is not dancing,” says Hermann. Newton spins and pauses for a beat.

“Yeah it is. Swing dancing.”

“That is not swing dancing. And this is not swing dancing music.”

“Modern swing dancing music,” says Newton. “And how would you know, huh? Weren’t you buried in a bunker with Einstein and the rest of the Inklings for that era?”

“The Inklings were not - I know how to swing dance, and you clearly do not.” Newton’s stopped dancing and is standing with his arms over his chest, absolute disbelief written over his face. “Come here.”

“There?”

Hermann sets down his tea and rests his cane against the table, and gestures impatiently. “Yes, here. How else am I going to instruct you properly on how to dance? Restart the song.”

Bewildered into obedience Newton starts the song and takes Hermann’s hand. A few steps later Newton is pulling away.

“Dude, no, you’re putting the weight all wrong.”

“Because I cannot put the weight on that leg.”

“So you have imperfect form and you want to teach me?”

“Your form is grotesque,” snaps Hermann. “Get here.”

 

This is how the Marshall finds them, Hermann with his hands tight on Newton’s so he can’t escape again, each of them shouting point-blank at each other about the other’s form, the music loud and fast behind them. They don’t notice the Marshall until he’s crossed the room and turned the music off.

“When I found out what you are I thought my problems would be more dire than informing you to stop dancing and get back to work. Hermann, you promised me your numbers half an hour ago.”

“Sorry, sir,” says Hermann. “I’ll email them over right away.” The Marshall hurumphs at them and marches away.

“Was it just me or did he look amused? You gotta admit that this is better than last time. Though I still reckon we could do a repeat performance in the early hours. What’s the likelihood that anyone comes past at 3 in the morning, huh?” Hermann slaps Newton on the back of the head. “What was that for?” Newton cries.

“This is your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Yes. If you’d learned to dance properly I wouldn’t have to fix it now.” He snatches up his cane. “Make me another cup of tea. Mine has gone cold.” Newton stares at him a moment, mouth open about to ask a question that has been plaguing on him for months, and has just now resurfaced thanks to the Marshall’s interruption. He keeps meaning to ask it but he can never find the right time, and he’s good. He really is, if it were up to him they’d be having sex a lot more often than they are, and they’ve only been doing this for three months, now.

Hermann lifts an eyebrow, and Newton scurries away to make tea.

“Can I ask a question?” he asks once he’s back. Hermann holds out a hand for the tea and Newton passes it over, his skin burning against the hot porcelain. When Newton doesn’t speak Hermann raises an eyebrow. “I always thought you were...” Newton immediately falters. “What’s the modern word for it?” Hermann looks at him with a faintly bemused expression on his face, the one he wears when he isn’t sure if Newton’s about to be horribly insulting or embarrassingly hilarious. Newton blunders on. “The word when you’re not interested in sex.”

“Asexual,” says Hermann automatically, setting his tea delicately beside a pile of books bookmarked to various theorems. “You’re not entirely incorrect. I’m not disinterested. I’m…” He, too, doesn’t know the word, so he grabs his science and makes one. “Hyposexual. It simply is not a priority for me. Humans are fleeting and on the whole unworthy of my time.” Newton tries to raise an eyebrow, but he can’t, and so both lift up together, and Hermann almost smiles to see it. “And,” he continues, “most vampires are too interested in blood and that is not something I enjoy in my sex.”

“Oh,” says Newton, an accidental disappointed noise.

Hermann glances away, pretending sudden interest in the activities of JAX-I. “Much of the time finding someone I am interested in who is also interested is more effort than I care to spend. There are more worthy pursuits to fill my time.”

Newton wonders, horribly, if he’s forced Hermann into things he did not want to do. “Just you and your right hand,” he teases, unthinking.

“My left hand,” Hermann corrects. Newton snorts, but Hermann can’t be bothered being embarrassed. He’s seen the porn that Newton reads.

“But you’ve got your kinks,” says Newton, with certainty. “Lab sex, remember?”

“We will not discuss that, and never again,” says Hermann. “The lab is not a place -”

“But you liked doing me against the blackboard, and you bit me. I know you enjoyed it, because I was there.” Although... “Did I make you do that? Dude, you don’t have to. I just get ideas, sometimes they’re stupid, don’t accommodate me if you don’t like them.”

“Do you think so little of me?” Hermann interrupts sternly. “I have not had a... relationship of this manner before. What sexual intercourse I desired I sought out and rarely indulged myself with the same person twice. I am relearning how to conduct myself in this kind of situation. We have done nothing I did not want to do, though I imagine the frequency will lessen once the novelty wears off.” He fixes his gaze sternly on Newton. “I do not care so much for you that I will place your desire to get off over my physical comfort.”

“I wouldn’t,” says Newton, as he stares, and his stomach plummets as he realises that he’s forcing Hermann out of his comfort zone, and there’s too much going on in the world to be forcing Hermann to be thinking of things that aren’t his mathematics and saving the world. “We can stop. We can stop everything. We were fine before sex, I can –”

“Newton,” Hermann interrupts harshly. “Do not panic about it. It is nice to know that even after all this time there are new things to be learned about myself.”

 


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a sexual scene but it's mostly character/relationship development and discussion of asexuality from Newton's perspective. 
> 
> I feel like this chapter is super disjointed because it's really just a bunch of scenes without any real plot. SO. Hopefully you like it all the same. (And I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to your comment! I love it all the same and I guarantee you I've read it about fifteen times. Thank you for reading. You are a gem and you deserve beautiful things.)

Hermann reads the pile of notes left on his desk without any real interest. There’s an office secretary, and they’re all mathematicians so they’re all a little strange and beyond a few comments no one seems to care that he only comes in to work after sunset.

It’s early in the year and Hermann’s in England because he likes England. He really likes England. He likes the countryside and he likes the people, he likes their reserved nature and their history. America’s too new. He can feel it like acid dripping through the cells of his bones. It’s 1977 and Hermann likes old places.

He’s at Cambridge, and he likes Cambridge. He’s attended here seven times before, and each time it feels like coming home.

He goes through his messages idly. There’s a call from Ehman and a call from Sagan, and there’s a few messages left by people in his department and then, at the bottom of the pile there is a telex, with a note from Lucy, who informs him she is very apologetic if the telex is not for him, but he’s the only German in the department.

The message is short and simple and Hermann knows immediately who it’s from. It’s short, and it’s written in German.

_Siegfried! Get an MRI!_

Hermann rereads the message, and goes to see if Lucy’s still around. He tells her to send a very simple response: No.

The next night, a Wednesday, he’s on his third cup of tea when the phone blares. He’s the only one in the office, so he has to get it. Laboriously, it being a little cold and it being a little while between feedings, Hermann limps over to the phone and picks it up.

“Siegfried!” The name is screeched down the line. “I’m in San Fransisco!”

“Fascinating,” says Hermann.

“You’re in Cambridge!”

“I am aware.”

“You need to get an MRI!”

Hermann takes the phone away from his ear and frowns at it a moment. “Is there a reason you are shouting?” he asks eventually.

“I’m in America!”

Hermann begins limping back to his desk and his tea, tugging the phone cable so that it follows. “I’m sure you have heard of such wondrous things as the transatlantic telecommunication cables. I’ll have you know I worked on sorting out the first one.”

“Really? Good job you. You have to get an MRI. I’m doing studies on people like us, and I wanna see inside you.”

“You’ll have to buy me dinner first,” says Hermann. He sits, and stretches out his leg with a grateful sigh.

“Siegfried,” says Newton, sounding shocked. “How scandalous! Do you bare your legs in company?”

“It is very unlike you to be behind the times,” says Hermann. “Homosexuality is all the rage, or did you eat that memo?”

“I only ate paper once, and it was green, and I thought it would taste like apples.” Hermann laughs. “Pft, whatever, dude, you don’t appreciate my drunken tales. Please get an MRI?”

“No.”

“Pleeasseee? I’ll send you my latest research on -” there’s the distant crackling of paper moving. “Archaea? No, that’s not mine. I’m working on viruses.”

“I heard about Phi X 174,” says Hermann. “Bad luck.”

“Fred is a jerk.”

“Because he lives in Cambridge?” asks Hermann.

Newton makes a strangled noise. “America is filled with brilliant scientists.”

“Perhaps,” says Hermann. “But it’s not Cambridge. In any case, no, I am not going to get an MRI, and I really must go as my tea is getting cold.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“I have no idea how you believe such language is going to convince me to agree.”

Newton makes a noise that sounds a little like “asdfhpower f[ashopqw4r[” and hangs up. Hermann realises that he has to get up to hang up the phone, and decides this is another point against Newton and thus another reason to refuse to have an MRI.

 

 

 

Hermann finds Tendo one Thursday, in the very early hours of the morning when Newton’s winding up and Hermann’s winding down. It’s lunch, or would be lunch, and Hermann is walking down the corridor in search of something to eat. An apple, he thinks. He needs something to sink his teeth into.

He doesn’t miss eating people. It’s not the kind of lifestyle he’d ever wanted, and saw it as some kind of inconvenient disease, similar to his leg. Part of him, something that makes him who he is, more able and more willing to sit indoors for long hours studying his numbers, but like his leg it’s part of him.

Part of him really wants to devour a person. Consume their blood and leave them ragged and cold on the floor.

He dreams in red and black decorated by pain.

Numbers are the closest thing to the handwriting of god, and this thing that keeps him living as the centuries tick on is the devil curled up inside.

He doesn’t hate it.

He really does not hate it.

Tendo’s awake at weird hours. He always has been, and usually they’ll acknowledge each other with a nod, sometimes with a short chat about Jaegers or numbers or something else. All their conversation comes back to the kaiju. Even when it’s not about kaiju - Alison, or a movie, or what’s for breakfast - they’re there, lingering like the Breach is in their brains and the kaiju erupt into their minds.

Hermann is not tired but Tendo has been awake for probably thirty-three hours at this point. Usually Tendo is the sort of guy to slap on a face, and even if he’s a bad actor you can appreciate the mask. He tries to be happy. He shoulders the weight of LOCCENT, and Hermann does not point out that he can see through the cracks. He doesn’t know if everyone else can, but he presumes so. Hermann cannot be more perceptive of human nature. He refuses to be.

Tendo is in the kitchen. Even here the length of the war cannot be missed. The benches are clean and orderly, but the walls are dripping with rust and the lights are a dim yellow. Tendo’s little French press is sitting on the bench, and Tendo is sitting on the floor. His legs are drawn up and his head is on his knees. He looks up when Hermann walks in.

“You!” he struggles to his feet. “You can help me.”

“Certainly,” says Hermann, because he cannot imagine refusing Tendo anything. Tendo takes a step forward, slightly unsteady. He’s been crying, but he’s not now, eyes dry and red, cheeks covered with a slight layer of salt. Tendo turns an earnest gaze on Hermann.

“Bite me.”

Except that.

“Please. You need to eat, and I need,” he cannot voice what he needs so he crowds Hermann against a kitchen bench and begins undoing his bowtie. “Please.” He pulls aside his collar and shows his throat.

It’s been precisely forty-eight years and two months and seven days and six hours and thirteen minutes and fifty-four seconds since Hermann sunk his teeth into a human throat. It’s a vile practise. Skin is tougher than you’d think, and it always takes too much pressure to cut through it, and then you have to tear the skin a little so that the blood does more than dribble out, and the human always struggles, even if they want it, because it’s their life being swallowed out of their most vulnerable place.

Biting for blood is messy and inconvenient, and leaves the human weak and clothes all a mess. Needles are just nicer. Biting _hurts_.

Hermann aches to feel that sudden give as his teeth pierce skin, to have his mouth fill with warm blood fresh from the jugular vein.

But he does not lean in. He is a thousand years old and he refuses to be one of those creatures that unthinkingly bleeds humans as though they are mere beasts for the slaughter.

He does not lean in.

“No.”

“Please,” says Tendo. His voice is a whine, a gasp, needy and desperate. “I,” he squishes his eyes shut, and Hermann uses the lack of that contact to pull Tendo’s hands away and do up his top buttons.

“There are other ways,” says Hermann.

Tendo shakes his head. He’s embarrassed now that Hermann has refused him and he doesn’t want to be here, in front of him, but he doesn’t know where else to go. He allows Hermann to do up his tie.

“Go and sleep,” says Hermann. “I will help you, but not like this.”

 

 

Newton is in the laboratory lost inside a computer program, and usually Hermann would not disturb him but this is far more important.

“It’s Tendo,” he says. “You need to help him. He,” Hermann grimaces, “he asked me to bite him.”

Newton shoots up out of his seat in alarm.

“You didn’t!”

“No!”

“Oh, thank god.”

Hermann wants to shout a little about that, appalled that Newton would immediately assume such a thing, but bites his tongue and focuses. “I’ve sent him to his room but I don’t,” he swallows, and composes himself, pushing the emotion away. He does not know what to do about Tendo. The man wants a type of pain Hermann refuses to give and Hermann knows no substitute. Newton is far better versed in such sensations. “I am not the person he requires at his side presently. Do anything,” he holds a steady gaze with Newton, “and I mean anything, to get him going.”

 

 

Tendo’s not in his room, which Newton knocks at and then tries the door. He opens it without entering, and finds the room beyond black and empty, so he goes to LOCCENT. At this time of day it is as silent as it will ever get, machines buzzing and ticking over. It’s warm here, and it’s nice. Newton basks a moment before asking a tech, who tells him Tendo’s shift ended and he should be in bed.

“Or check rec room. They play xBox to calm down,” says the woman.

The rec room is one of perhaps twenty such little rooms, a couch and a TV and a few games, a table for cards, and few paperbacks that get passed from person to person. Tendo’s there, sitting on the couch staring at the wall. He jolts when Newton sits down beside him.

“You should be in bed, dude,” says Newton. Tendo turns a hopeful gaze up at him. “Dude, no. My fangs stay in. Do you want me to walk you to your room?”

“…Yeah…”

Newton touches his elbow. “Come on, up you get.”

Tendo lets himself be led out of the rec room and down the corridor to the elevator.

“What’s up?” asks Newton while they wait. “Just the usual?”

“I wanna marry Alison,” says Tendo.

“Dude, that’s great!” Newton cries. “Why the sudden decay into depression?”

“What’s the point?”

“You love her, right?”

The elevator grinds to a stop in front of them and Tendo sort of… drifts into it.

“I’m not good at monogamy,” says Tendo. “And I’m not good at only dating women. And I’m not good at anything except this,” he waves his arm around. “How messed up is that? I’m only good at things when there’s monsters destroying the world.” He runs his hands through his hair and somehow doesn’t mess it up. “I just… I don’t know if I’m real. Like. I’m not a real person. Somehow. I don’t think I’m doing this right.”

“This?”

Tendo sags. “Life.”

“Have you told Alison?”

“She knows. I was… Cheating on her. But she knew. Is it cheating if they know?”

Newton walks with him towards Tendo’s room, and thinks of what Hermann told him. Anything. Anything to get him going. “No,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

“This must be so mundane to you,” says Tendo. “Poor sad human miserable at his short stupid life.”

“Nah, dude. You’re important.”

Tendo tries to square his shoulders, and fails. “Course I am. This place needs me.”

“Yeah,” says Newton, he didn’t mean that. “You,” he says, with a heavy emphasis. “You’re important.”

They look at each other, Tendo standing too close and too warm and Hermann’s _anything_ ringing loud in Newton’s ears, so it surprises neither of them when one of them kisses the other, or they both kiss each other at the same time. Tendo’s tired and sags against Newton, needs Newton to wrap his arms around his back to support him, and then they’re just standing, hugging. Leaning on each other.

Tendo’s crying. Newton wraps his arms tighter and whispers into his ear, “it’s alright. I’ve got you, it’s alright.” Then, “dude, we’re at your room.” Tendo says nothing. “You gotta invite me in. Please.”

“Come in,” says Tendo, and it’s muffled by Newton’s shirt.

Carefully, so as to not let Tendo go too much, he manages to open Tendo’s door and walks him into his room. He doesn’t ask if he can stay, he only closes the door behind them and undoes Tendo’s tie for him, slips the suspenders off his shoulders and pushes him down onto the bed. Newton does no more than undo his own tie before lying down beside him, pulling him close so that Tendo can cry into his chest before falling into a shuddering, teary sleep.

He debates leaving before Tendo wakes and then debates staying there the whole night, and in the end that problem is solved by Tendo half waking after an hour or so and telling him he should go.

“Are you alright?”

Tendo nods into the pillow.

“Are you sure?”

Tendo nods again.

Newton is halfway back to the lab before he realises he left his tie behind. But, Tendo’s probably - hopefully - sleeping again. Really he needs to be sleeping for at least a full twenty four hours, and Newton has no desire to get in the way of that, so he goes back to the lab with no tie and his top button undone, hair a bit flat on one side from the pillow.

Hermann sees him when he gets into the lab, of course, and stares - just stares, saying nothing, at that top button. The tiny bit of throat bared beneath.

Eventually Hermann says, “How is Mr Choi?”

“Sleeping,” says Newton. He should tell someone, get Tendo to see a therapist, maybe, but everything’s heavy and Tendo’s carrying so much and everyone’s relying on him to do it. It might do more harm than good for him to need to go to someone. Perhaps the Marshall could have a word with him.

He’s busy contemplating the danger to morale versus the general good of Tendo’s health, too busy to really notice Hermann’s continued long stare that’s broken by one of Newton’s machine playing a little song to tell him that it’s done mixing. It prompts them both back into work, and when Tendo comes around the next night a little shame-faced with Newton’s tie, unwilling to meet Hermann’s eye, Hermann says absolutely nothing.

A few days pass without any kind of drama, but Tendo’s still looking a little down so when Newton notices his hip fading in colour a little he finds Tendo and forcibly brings him along to the tattoo parlour.

Getting tattooed as a vampire hurts. It’s an entire elaborate process and involves completely different inks coupled with silver, and when Tendo notices how white Newton’s knuckles have gone from holding onto the chair he asks if he can have a tattoo.

He wants it exactly the same as Newton’s getting one, hard pain and something to pin him into this century. He keeps drifting, he keeps forgetting that this is important, it’s not a game or a story. These are actual real lives. He forgets and then he doesn’t forget, and he knows he should probably go to therapy but he is oh so done with that.

He’s already got a tattoo on his neck so he takes off his shirt, and Newton looks at but does not ask about the scars across his chest.

Don’t ask don’t tell because honestly it doesn’t matter. There are more important things than Tendo’s chromosomal state.

Tendo gets a tattoo over his ribs, a mermaid that’s kind of evil, a hooked nose and cruel grin, and it’s beautiful. Tendo tears up at the pain but he doesn’t actually cry, and he tells Newton a story of when he was a kid. Apparently he has a younger sister, and they had a ginger cat they played chasey with.

The tattoo gets outlined and Newton insists on paying before Tendo can even reach for his pocket.

“Dude, seriously, I’ve been hoarding for like, a million years. Keep your cash.”

 

 

 

 

“Remember that time I was a girl?” The words are spoken without preamble, like most of Newton’s words. He’s back from watching Tendo’s tattoo get filled in. There’s one more session, probably, just retouches and the like. It’s not exactly fixed Tendo, but things are better.

He’s engaged, now. Alison asked him, and he said yes. They’re going to make it work.

“That’s grossly insensitive,” snaps Hermann, hardly listening.

“Really? What, because I’m happily all-male now? Nah, dude, that’s not how it works. Just cos something’s a phase doesn’t make it less real. And it lasted, like, 70 years which is as long as most humans if not longer. I mean, I only slept with women in the 1300s but that doesn’t mean I’m less into you now.”

“The fourteenth century?” snaps Hermann. “You only slept with women in the fourteenth century? I rather believe you didn’t have sex with anyone, at least no one human.”

“I’m not into animals.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” snaps Hermann.

“Fine, whatever. But you’ve done the same, gone through phases, right? You don’t have to stick with something forever for it to be real. Actually,” he pauses, considers. “Actually, I think the only constant has been you. I’ve fallen in love and had friends and lived in various places and the only thing that’s ever come back around is you. And I dressed as a woman and lived as a woman, and I met you! Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” snaps Hermann, but he cannot pick Newton-as-female out from his memories. He touches his forehead, trying to recall. “Where was it?”

“London. Queen Bloody Mary and whatnot.”

Hermann runs through the memories and frowns. “I did not think a vampire to be present.”

“I noticed you,” says Newton. “But I was rather afraid you’d give away my cover.”

“Is that something that… still is?” asks Hermann, tentative and worried he’s stepped on something that hurts.

“Nah. Well, never say never, but right now, this is me.” He gestures at himself. “I mean, that was me. But I’m happy how I am, now.”

“Kaiju groupie and would-be rockstar,” sneers Hermann. “I think I can figure out the pronouns for those particular afflictions.”

 

 

 

They’ve been together – in “some kind of entanglement”, as Hermann terms it, and probably he’d call Newton his paramour if ever he were asked – for several months now. As Hermann promised his interest in sex has waned, while Newton’s still extremely interested in all kinds of sex as often as he can have it. He wonders about what Hermann said about Tendo and wonders if Hermann would be willing for their relationship to be open to some degree, but Newton doesn’t want it. He only wants Hermann, and in lieu of Hermann he has himself, and that’s okay.

He loves himself. He gets himself off every time, and perfectly, and to exactly the fantasy he needs at the time.

Today, he had no grand intentions. He was in the lab a little horny and from the way Hermann was sheltered behind his shelves of books he knew there was nothing to be had there. Which he has no problems with. Really. He doesn’t even need to try to convince himself he has no problems with it, he simply doesn’t.

Hermann is Hermann and Newton leaves the lab and goes to his room where he undoes his pants and lies down and proceeds to jerk off.

He didn’t plan to make it a production. He just wanted to get off so he could get back to work, undistracted.

He’s lying in bed with the covers all askew from last time he slept here. Probably two nights ago, now. It’s kind of strange, because they’re living just a few metres apart, so moving in together would mean nearly nothing at all, except that they haven’t done it.

Hermann needs his space. Newton needs his, too, truth be told. Too close near one person and it starts to do things to his moods. He needs to sleep alone at night, sometimes, to remember that he is one person and he can do this. He can continue on into eternity strong and firm and all his own person.

There’s therapy for people who are scared of dying but for people who, unless they’re lucky - or frightfully _unlucky_ \- will live so long as to watch the sun burn out of the sky, there’s nothing.

There’s only you.

You learn to look after yourself when there’s no one else to lean on. Newton is not going to let that strength go just because he’s in love. Or… whatever he is.

So he’s lying on his bed in his room with his pants pushed down to the tops of his knees and his hand is on his cock.

Too dry, he thinks, and he rolls over and pulls open the drawer by the bed. There’s lube in there, but his hand finds a butt-plug first and he thinks sure, why the hell not. He lubes that up and presses it in, unthinking, no fantasy here, just a motion of in-and-on. It makes a little whirring noise, not very loud at all except to his vampire ears and in the metal box that is his bedroom.

He’s got his stock fantasies - his usual is a girl with blond short hair going down on him. Mia, from when he was human. She’d been so soft and beautiful, and her lips had tightened all the way along his cock, perfect and slick, and - he pushes into his hand and lets his mind wander. Breakfast, mods for the fight simulator, theories about flying kaiju, kaiju, kaiju - their tongues. What can they taste? What do they eat? What kind of foods does their home planet have?

He rolls his hips trying to angle the plug better in his arse, gripping his balls hard and tugging slightly.

He thinks of Hermann, showering with him, the shape of his hip and the feel of his teeth.

The butt plug isn’t enough, suddenly none of this is enough, so he shifts and reaches into the drawer. His hand touches - oh. This one. The blue one. It had been horrifyingly large when he’d first got it, but now it looks sort of average. For a toy. Not for a penis. It’s thick and veined and it doesn’t actually glow in the dark, but it looks like it should. It sort of… sparkles. In a non-Twilight way.

He hasn’t used it since the kaiju but suddenly it feels right. He runs his hand down the length of it and thinks, hm, yes.

It takes him rolling onto his front, then shifting onto his knees and kneeling forward onto his elbows before he’s finally able to get any of it in, but once it’s there stretching him open, he moans into the mattress and wonders how in god’s name Hermann’s able to say no to this.

He gets it, he really does. Well, he muses, face-down on the mattress, arse, in the air with a thick blue piece of plastic sticking out of him, he doesn’t really get it. He knows it’s important, and he’s not going to step on it - he’s a chemist. Biology first, but you can’t do biology without chemistry and you can’t do chemistry without physics and physics is a sort of engineering and there’s more than one bridge with his drawings on the blueprints.

Anyway, he knows chemistry and he understands about reactions and limiting reagents, and that’s how he’s always done relationships. If they’re going to be counted by Avogardo’s constant - he wonders, thumb over the slit of his cock and other hand pushing the dildo deeper into himself, if perhaps Hermann ever met Armedeo. He makes a note to ask him, later.

He moans a little, shifts his hips - if they’re both molecules then Hermann’s not enough - that seems like a criticism. Newton doesn’t want to be critical.

Hermann’s Hermann and Newton loves him and Hermann’s _perfect_.

But if they’re going to be counted by Avogardo’s constant and they’re a reaction then Hermann’s the limiting reagent and Newton’s the excess. Newton’s not going to push him outside of that. He can’t, he doesn’t have the molecular weight, but he doesn’t _understand_ why anyone would say no to _this_ when they could say yes.

The thing about tentacles is this: Newton can be thinking about absolutely anything, his best fantasy, or nothing at all, but add tentacles to the mix and it will get him off.

So he’s thinking, idly, about everything and nothing about because the dildo is blue he’s thinking about kaiju, and then he’s thinking about tentacles and tongues and kaiju.

He’s thinking about a kaiju - no, not a kaiju. A much smaller kaiju-like thing with its cock inside Newton - and _Jesus_ , is this actually? He moans. O-okay. Okay. This is a thing. He’ll go with it. He’ll just go.

The kaiju is over him and its claws are in his hair and its scales are dragging at his back. Then - hand on his cock a side-thought, there’s a flashback to his trans days and he’s imagining a tongue, long and blue and luminescent prying its way into a wet vagina, and he whines, his open mouth with a claw hooked in the corner of it so that his saliva is dribbling onto the bed sheets. He bucks back and he gasps and he comes hot and wet into his palm.

He lies there, contemplating the meaning of life and if, on the off-chance he does actually have a soul and there is some kind of god and some kind of heaven, if he’s actually going to go to hell. Because - he tugs the dildo out of him - he probably is.

 

Hermann doesn’t so much as look up when Newton sort of staggers into the laboratory with his hair in more than its usual disarray. He does frown a little at the noise of him flopping down into his chair, but does not turn to look at him through the gap in the bookshelf.

“Dude,” Newton says. “Dude.” Hermann pauses in his typing. “I just masturbated to kaiju.”

Hermann sighs heavily. “Of course you would.”

“You don’t understand! I’ve never done that before! Tentacles, yes, kaiju, no. One day, man, you and me, we’re gonna sit down and have a chat about what actually turns me on.”

“As far as I understand it, that list could be shortened to ‘everything’.”

“Well… Okay. But. No, not really. I mean, I’m not into watersports or scat or vomit and I can only deal with _you_ biting _me_ , and, like, dude, that’s like a hundred fantasies right there that you fulfil for me.” Hermann blushes and preens and then frowns.

“Are you truly surprised by this… kaiju… thing?”

“Well, yes!”

“I thought you liked,” Hermann does not actually shudder, but it’s a near thing, “tentacles.”

“Tentacles are not kaiju.”

“Cephalopod are still animals.”

“I don’t think of octopuses. Jesus! Is that why you get so weird about it? It’s more of a… Cecil Palmer sort of… thing.” Hermann presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek and considers the man he has fallen in love with. Newton misinterprets the silence. “Sorry. Is this weird for you?”

“No,” says Hermann. He’s still behind the shelves with his computer, and Newton cannot see him. “I don’t want you pretending as though this part of you doesn’t exist for the rest of eternity. I want you to be nothing less than what you are.”

Newton blinks. That was actually… nice. “Aw, you’re so sweet.”

Hermann grunts, which could be irritation or acceptance or a noise not even directed at Newton.

“Is this a role-play thing?” asks Hermann, with the same sort of disapproving tone he uses if Newton boils the kettle without making Hermann tea. “I’d really rather not have to act out a creature set on destroying the planet.”

“No, you don’t have to be involved at all,” says Newton, basking a little in the afterglow of a good orgasm and Hermann being so decent about it all.

“Can I get back to work?” Hermann asks.

“Yeah, yeah, go for it. Want a cup of tea?”

“Please.”

 

 

 

Newton’s got his tentacles and his cartoon porn, and Hermann’s got his soccer.

It’s about the same level of a shame-faced secret, only Hermann hasn’t let so much as a hint pass his lips. He watches the games in secret, or watches the clips online when he misses the live game.

It started out because of the maths, and it started out several hundred years ago.

He’d been in Sussex, or current-day Sussex, and it had been an unseasonally warm night. No one had been able to sleep, and someone had come and found him and informed him they were going to have a picnic outside in the moonlight. They’d brought candles and counted stars - Hermann had been somewhat critical of this practice, and had instead calculated the stars, picking a small area and counting those ones, and multiplying it by the estimated space across the horizon.

And then, between sweet-meats and cordial, they’d played cricket.

What a ridiculous sport. Really. A ball and a bat and some sticks and another, smaller stick? And the scoring was foolishly complicated, too many rules and none of them really made sense.

In any case, Hermann couldn’t play, he’d sat with - not the women. Good god, the women were out there too, eagerly dashing about in the blackness as though they wanted to trip and break an ankle. But Hermann had sat with the food and the more sedate of the humans, and he had discovered a new form of maths.

Sports maths.

It had been intoxicating, and it had taken electricity and film before he was able to properly indulge it. That was perhaps the best thing about this living-for-ever deal. If he wanted something he only had to wait a while for someone to come up with the solution to the problem. Like recorded matches and night-time games on flood-lit pitches.

Hermann really likes his sports.

And he likes his maths.

Once, back at Cambridge (during the 1800s, this was) one of his colleagues had scoffed that his interest in cricket was entirely academic. Hermann had sniffed, and pointedly stated that in the end everything is statistics. “Even you, my good man,” he had said.

But soccer is his game. It’s the German in him. He’s from Munich, originally. Munich-area. And Bayern Munich is an exceptional team. Twenty-five Bundesliga titles to date.

This is how Newton finds out: it’s a Sunday, and Hermann’s watching the last match. Bayern vs Dortmund, and what a game! He’s got the left over take-away from the card game the night before and he’s leaning back a little in his chair, legs kicked up to rest on top of a computer tower. If Newton could see him like this, Newton would have a fit, but Hermann’s focused on the sport and the maths and on keeping his shirt clean despite the chopsticks.

Which is why he doesn’t notice the kitchen door open or Newton come around the side of shelves to his little nook beyond, creep up close behind Hermann, doesn’t notice him until he shrieks “what the hell, man?”

Hermann squeaks and nearly falls out of his chair, turning red-faced and angry on Newton.

“What was that for?”

“You’re watching sport!”

“Your observational skills are exceptional,” says Hermann dryly. “Now please, shut up.”

“No! Never again will I be silent! You’re watching sport!”

“I do not understand why this is so fascinating,” Hermann growls, brushing a wrinkle out of his vest and settling back down into his chair.

“You like math, not sport.”

“This is maths,” growls Hermann. “Honestly, Newton, mankind have been betting on the outcomes of sports matches since they first realised they could make kicking a ball into something you could win. It’s all just statistics in the end. Now, will you please go away.”

“Nah, dude, I’m watchin’ this with you.”

“You wouldn’t be interested,” Hermann sniffs. “Munich almost always wins, and Hertha hasn’t won the Bundesliga ever.” To Newton’s blank look he sighs. “Berlin’s team. Hertha BSC.”

“I’m a Yorks fan.” Newton crinkles his nose. “Yanks? Giants?”

Hermann gives him a withering glare. “If you’re trying to make reference to baseball, you’re referring to the Yankees. The Giants are a football team.”

“Yes! That. It’s like rugby, but the men are less naked, right?”

There’s a shout from the speakers and Hermann immediately skips back on the video to see what he missed.

“Shut up,” he says, preemptively.

“Didn’t say anything,” says Newton.

“I can hear you thinking. It’s disgusting.”

 

 

 

“Ahhh!” calls Newton, spinning around on his chair to grin at Hermann. “Remember that time in seventeen-seventy-three?”

“I did not see you in seventeen-seventy-three,” says Hermann, sternly, not looking up from his computer. They’re not alone in the room, but Tendo’s not a concern.

Hermann is relieved by that, even though he’d never say it. It’s exhausting, having to pretend mortality. Tendo’s here because the light’s better, and also he’s hiding from Alison.

They had a fight. Not an end-of-relationship fight, but a fight that means Tendo wants to lay low for a bit. The lab is the last place anyone would look for anyone not the two doctors, so he’s safe for a while.

“Yeah, but it was in the papers.”

“I did not see the sense in cluttering my mind with the everyday events of humanity.”

“Seriously? No wonder you’re so behind the times.”

“Can you be behind the times?” interjects Tendo, looking up from his tablet. “Really?”

“No,” says Hermann, agreeing with Tendo firmly. “I am no more behind the times than you.”

“Excuse me?” cries Newton. “Have you met me?”

It’s not an argument per se. Hermann’s music is lower than normal, a soft lulling noise of birds and trees, and they all three of them are busily distracted with their own work. Newton talks quickly but the space between his sentences is drawn out. He’s focused on his computer, taking pictures of what’s under the microscope.

“Anyway, so, in seventeen-seventy-three I was in America.”

“I know that much,” says Hermann. “You went to America as soon as it was discovered. Couldn’t wait to be rid of the continent.”

“Would that it were the first time,” sighs Newton. “But not immediately. I hate sailing. It’s a terrible business.”

“I’m sure. Hermann, I’m sending you an email,” says Tendo. “Can you check it over?”

“Certainly,” says Hermann. A few moments later he adds, “this is taking a while to download.”

“Mm, sorry about that,” says Tendo.

Silence reigns while Newton ponders the photographs he’s taken.

“I was at this brothel,” he begins again.

“Merde neik,” breathes Hermann. “Are you incapable - error on line fifty,” he interrupts himself, and Tendo thanks him, “of shutting up? Some of us have work to do, not pretty pictures to look at.”

“You think it’s pretty?” asks Newton. He turns the screen so Hermann can see it, and he glances up merely because it’s a moving thing, not because he wants to actually look. “Inner workings of a kaiju kidney.”

“It looks like a mushroom,” says Hermann. “A grey mushroom. I was of the understanding biological stains are a bit pinker.”

“Don’t even,” snaps Newton. “It took six months to find a stain that even halfway works, and this only shows up some cells.” He swears in some language Hermann doesn’t understand but would guess at being Klingon. A few moments later the printer whirs to life.

“Are you printing that?”

“Nah, I’m printing this thing I found online.”

“If it’s a joke…” Hermann threatens.

“Would I waste paper on a joke?”

Hermann narrows his eyes, and decides not to point out that Newton has done that before, multiple times, and one time spent an entire afternoon printing out photographs of a particular actor that he then insisted on sticking on the hallway down to their rooms.

“At least make sure the font isn't Garamond again.”

“Of course,” says Newton. “Because god forbid we use even a single ounce more ink than absolutely necessary.”

“Serif fonts are inefficient,” snaps Hermann, and his counterargument is cut short by Tendo snickering. “What?” he asks, with more force than is absolutely necessary. Tendo’s used to them enough that he doesn’t see Hermann’s irritation and immediately presume that the vampire’s going to take out his jugular.

“You’re immortal! And you’re arguing about ink!”

“Rationing affects us all. Moreover, serif fonts waste ink, and given that ink costs more than blood does I feel that I am far more suited to this argument than you. It is absolutely unnecessary to -”

Tendo waves his hand. “I’m sure, I’m sure you’re right. I keep forgetting you’re not what I expect.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?” asks Hermann.

“I expect you to be a little more blood thirsty.”

“Oh, you should see him when I steal his pint of the day,” says Newton, sliding off his chair and crossing to the printer.

“When it is clearly labelled with my name you should not touch it!” cries Hermann.

“Oh, dude, as though we don’t eat exactly the same stuff. Don’t listen to the rumours,” he adds to Tendo. “It’s basically impossible to tell the difference between blood groups.” He takes the paper and walks it over to Hermann. “Anyway, like I was saying, in seventeen-seventy-three, I was at a brothel.” He holds the paper up between Hermann and his work so that he is forced to look at it.

“What?” Newton laughs and dances back over to his side of the lab. “Why would you waste ink on this?”

“It’s history, dude.”

“Can I see?” Tendo gets up and takes the paper from Hermann. It’s a drawing of a man in a position intended to be provocative.

It is, undeniably, Newton. There’s a short list of services. Tendo takes a few seconds to realise what it is. “You were a sex worker in Colonial America?” he cries.

“Science was slow. Gotta fill up the hours somehow,” says Newton with a shrug. “Anyway, so in seventeen-seventy-three-”

“You are not filling the hours with stories of your sex life,” yells Hermann. “You will be silent, or I will come over there and make you silent.”

“Ah, I dunno if I want to be here for that,” says Tendo, with a nervous grin. He’s still not entirely certain of the relationship between the two scientists. They’ve not advertised anything, but neither are they keeping it purposefully secret.

“It’s nothing so fun,” says Newton. “Just duct-tape. Fine, I’ll protect your virgin ears.”

 

 

 

They’re lying in bed together. It’s rare, but Newton likes it. Hermann does not like it, but Newton might convince him.

The year has ticked over and this is familiar, but usually Hermann would have asked Newton to leave before now. Newton needs two hands to count how often he’s spent the whole night in Hermann’s bed, but only barely. Hermann likes his space, but their beds are tiny. Sleeping together means sleeping practically on top of each other, and Newton doesn’t really begrudge Hermann his request for space.

Newton trails his fingertips over the soft hairs of Hermann’s chest. He looks over at the clock. The sun is setting; it’s time to get up. He tries to imagine what the sun is like, tries to mesh together the brilliance of all the photographs into something he can picture in his mind.

The sun can burn through the retina and he cannot imagine something so bright.

“I miss the sun,” he says, as Hermann begins shifting beneath him, readying himself to get up.

Hermann stills. He presses a kiss to Newton’s hair, and Newton never imagined that this caustic man would ever do something so tender as that.

“So do I,” he murmurs. “There’s a full moon on Tuesday. We can take our lunch on the roof.”

“It’s no substitute,” complains Newton, and Hermann cannot disagree.

 

 

 

 

It’s a few decades ago. France. Friday. One of two times they see each other in the 1900s.

Hermann’s living in a sharehouse with a group of students and researchers, and every day he wakes up and he feel as though he’s living on the cusp of progress. Everyone is full of life and eager, and Hermann drinks it up like a… Well. He swallows life like a creature that survives on it.

They invite him up to the roof to have dinner and watch the sunset, and he makes his excuses like always. He plans to not join them at all, but he hears a familiar voice cutting through the chatter that drifts through his open window, and the sun is gone and the night-sky is hazy with clouds and stars and city lights.

He puts on a second jumper because he hasn’t eaten yet and climbs the fire escape.

Newton is there.

The sun is gone but Newton is there, and Hermann misses the light so much sometimes that it aches within him, but Newton is there.

“Hello, stranger,” grins Newton. “Heard there were a buncha nerds in this place lookin’ to party.”

“What are you doing here?” asks Hermann.

They’re not friends.

“I know you like having your space and all. I’m here for a presentation, then I’ll bugger off,” says Newton. “That cool with you, old man?”

They’re not friends, and Hermann has no desire to change that. He doesn’t like his own kind much more than he likes humans, but if he has to pick one over the other he’ll take humans every time. He doesn’t try to understand them, and they respect and fear him in equal proportions.

He and Newton are not friends, but they’re something, so Hermann takes the flask that’s offered him and swallows a mouthful of blood, and he’s pulled into an argument regarding something Einstein was working on.

Hermann is nothing if not an expert on what Einstein knew.

 

The main problem with 2023 is that there are no kaiju attacks. People get bored. (People say that the Wall is going to save them.)

The PPDC goes through more cuts, and the bustle of activity around the lab dies down. Newton does what work he can but there’s not much when the samples are withering in preservative and nothing’s come out of the Breach.

Newton complains to Pentecost but there’s only so much even he can do. There’s no money, and kaiju are expensive. The UN doesn’t care about funding research. They hit lucky with a rich woman who keeps a museum in her basement and needs to get rid of a few scales and pieces of tongue to make room for some new acquisition, but there’s only so much cutting you can do.

Newton’s looked at every inch under a microscope, done all he knows what to do with the chemicals and tried some new things beside. You can blast them with heat, acid doesn’t work but he’s working on synthesising a base. He’s worried by their saliva, but, of course that dries out far before Newton ever sees it.

He reads books and forum posts and tries to get new ideas of what to do with what he’s got, but after a few months it’s not even the kaiju. He needs new equipment, and that costs money. He needs new machines, ideally, and even sending samples off to other labs costs money that the PPDC don’t have to spare.

They’re bringing Gipsy Danger out of Oblivion Bay. At least Hermann’s distracted.

They ask Newton for his recommended modifications to the Jaeger. All he can think of is duel swords, and he doesn’t know if that’s based in science or if it’s just that he’s been rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Hermann is kept busy. He rushes in and out of the lab and works endlessly on new codes. “It’s the last new Jaeger,” he keeps saying. “It has to be perfect.” At first Newton tries to help, but Hermann growls at him in that way he has so Newton wanders down to Medical and offers his services there to fill up his free time.

They’re living in the same building, still sharing the same hallway and sometimes the same room, but 2023 feels, to each of them, like they’ve moved apart. They aren’t in each other’s faces anymore. Hermann goes whole days together at a time not yelling at Newton, simply because they’re not in the lab together to yell. Newton notices and wonders if this is what life would be like if they lived in a white-picket house and each had a nine to five at different work places, kissing goodbye and coming home to eat dinner and watch telly before bed.

He doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t like it at all.

He wants to be in Hermann’s face, wants to see the expression on his face when he gets so completely lost in his work that the frown on his forehead fades and his lips relax, and everything about him goes peaceful and still. He wants to hear the little noises of irritation. Wants to hear the clacking of the cane across the floor. He doesn’t like this, this half separation.

Newton spends a lot of his time wondering what Hermann is doing.

Hermann spends a lot of his time very focused on his work. He knows that he’s not seen Newton, but he also knows that he left a cup of tea on the bench that’s gone cold and he hasn’t put his clothes out to get washed by the staff, and he has a long list of little niggly things that he needs to attend but it’s always after. After he recalibrates this. After he finds the error in this code. After he talks with these three Techs about their modifications. After he discusses the neural transmission sequence with Tendo.

He’s not like Newton. He doesn’t spend his time lost in thought about what his paramour (he uses that word; Newton is far more crass) is doing.

So when he’s walking down the hallway one morning close to dawn he’s not lost in thought about Newton, he’s lost in thought about what work he has to still do before he goes to bed, and if there’s blood in the fridge (now that they’re the only ones in K-Science they keep it in the kitchen, and leave messy mugs lying about. One of the cleaners very tentatively asked what it was, and Newton apologised and said it was science. They clean their own mugs now, as much as they remember).

Hermann’s had his cane for decades now, and Newton teases him for that, but the truth is they really don’t build them like they used to. This is proper wood, good and solid, carved over with intricate patterns that are subtle enough that Hermann doesn’t think it’s ostentatious. It fits his hand. It’s familiar, a part of him.

He’s had his limp for a thousand years.

There’s a lot of things that go wrong in a thousand years.

He’s a scrawny mathematician with a limp. He’s antisocial and entirely unconcerned with what others think of him, and the world has never liked that.

Most of the time at the PPDC everything is fine. No one approaches him and he approaches no one, and the giant pilot would-bes don’t bother him. One’s even come up eagerly to shake his hand, to thank him for all the work he’s done on the Jaegers.

So when he’s limping along a corridor with a sheaf of papers under one arm and his cane in the other hand focused thoroughly on an array of numbers and quick, complex calculations done all inside his head, he’s not particularly concerned by the three or four slightly drunk people coming towards him. He scarcely acknowledges them except to step slightly to the side, to give them space to pass.

He doesn’t even hear the first thing they say.

“Oi! We’re talking at you,” says the person. Hermann looks up, surprised.

“Apologies,” he says, politely, “what did you say?”

There are sniggers and Hermann narrows his eyes.

“You’re the little mathematician.”

Now, Hermann is 1.8 metres tall, which is 5’10 in the old language, and it’s only bad posture that brings him closer to Newton’s level. He draws himself up and finds that he can look these people solidly in the eye.

“Yes,” he says coldly. “I’m the mathematician.”

“Heard you’re banging the kaiju freak.” There’s a snigger and one of them mutters ‘homo’. It’s 2023, and this sort of thing doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

“That’s a lovely stick,” says another. “Might I see it?” They grin, all together, all at once.

“No,” says Hermann.

“Aw, come on. I just wanna see the engravings.”

“You can see them from there,” says Hermann. His knuckles are tight around the cane, afraid that they’ll snatch it from him without warning. He takes a step away from them, trying to get past them. They all move as one, like some horrid nightmare, and Hermann grits his teeth and keeps his fangs retracted and holds his cane firm in his hand.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Or what?” leers one.

“You’ll hit us?”

“With that little stick?”

There’s laughter.

“Nerds can’t fight,” says one, advancing, and Hermann makes a decision.

He drops the papers and he turns the cane so that it’s a weapon in his hand and as one of them lunges at him he strikes them across the face with the hard wood. It’s been a bad day for his leg and his hip is locked up so he is certain he will fall if he moves. He plants it firm and pushes against the pain, and hits the next one that tries to grab him.

There’s four of them and one of him and they all set on him at once.

Hermann’s got his back against the metal wall and is doing his best to stay upright and to not set upon them with fangs and a godawful rage.

He’s saved by a would-be pilot and her friends. They drag the people off Hermann and send them packing. Then, there’s only silence and a soft hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

Hermann blinks at her. She’s beautiful, with purple tendrils in her hair and big brown eyes. Her accent is thick and he answers in bad Cantonese.

“I am alright. Thank you.”

“I know them,” says one, her arms over her chest and glaring down the hall where the others have been sent packing. “I’ll file a report. So should you.”

They look at him expectantly. He nods, slowly. There’s blood in his mouth and he touches his cheek to find the skin has split over the bone. That will heal, but not immediately.

“You need some ice,” says one of the women. They help him pick up his papers and then they insist on taking him up to the kitchens where they find ice and ice cream and although it makes him shiver he willingly eats it, icepack pressed to his face and listening to them replay the short battle with loud laughs. They include him easily, immediately befriending him, and it’s some time before he gets back to the lab.

Newton’s already asleep, passed out on the couch with his boots still on and a manga on his chest. Hermann lifts his legs and sits down on the couch with a heavy sigh. Newton murmurs and shifts in his sleep a little, and Hermann’s hand darts out to rescue the book from falling on the floor. He blushes and chuckles a little at the style of porn Newton had been reading, and closes it and places it carefully on the floor.

He is exhausted, and it suddenly registers just how long it’s been since he spent time around Newton.

“Newton,” he whispers, wanting to wake him up but wanting to do it gently. He pokes his arm. “Newton, wake up.”

“Mm? Herm! You’re back.” He looks around. “I’m on the couch?”

“Apparently.”

“I wasn’t waiting for you. I’m not a lovesick puppy, I swear. I’m not…” He rubs the sleep from his eyes and gives Hermann a weary smile. “Sorry. Did you need something?”

“I want to go to sleep. It has been a trying day.”

“Okay,” says Newton, quite clearly confused why Hermann woke him up to say that. He moves his legs to let Hermann up, and sits upright with a groan. “I guess I should go, too. To bed, I mean.” Hermann leans forward and rests his head on Newton’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around Newton’s waist.

“With me, I hope.” Newton blinks, tired and surprised, and stares for a moment before nodding eagerly.

“Yes! Yes, I should. Okay. Yes.”

They go to bed, together, changing into thick pyjamas and curling close together to stay warm.

Neither of them have any idea how they managed to exist before this.

It’s Tendo who points it out to Mako, both of them waiting in LOCCNET for Pentecost (he comes in late, slightly more ruffled than usual, and with Herc conspicuously close behind). Hermann’s there, and Newton’s wandered in for no reason anyone can see. They’re sitting close together and talking softly. It’s bizarre to see them not yelling at each other, and no one would be surprised to know that they just came from bed where they had spent an indulgent half-hour enjoying each other.

Everyone’s busy. Half an hour against each other’s bare skin is a luxury. This, now, Hermann hunched over a keyboard and Newton beside him, this is their version of basking in the afterglow.

Mako is reviewing a list of would-be pilots in the hopes that Danger will be ready soon, and Tendo is giving his input, and they both are interrupted by a soft ‘oi!’ from the other side of the room. They watch as Hermann shakes his head at Newton and Newton laughs and buries his head against Hermann’s shoulder, and Hermann shakes his head and kisses his hair before pushing him away and returning to work.

“They’re so Drift compatible they put these guys to shame,” says Tendo, tapping Mako’s clipboard.

“Doctor Gottlieb has mentioned an interest in being a pilot, if not for his leg,” says Mako.

“So many good pilots lost for the wrong reasons,” sighs Tendo. Not that they could, being vampires. The sun, the food, the exhaustion, all of it limits them.

Immortality, he thinks, is not worth all that.

“What about the rumours of finding Becket for the Jaeger?”

Mako makes a face. “True. It should be me.”

“Who knows,” says Tendo lightly. “Maybe you’ll be compatible with him.”

Mako makes a face that makes Tendo chuckle. “Only I would be so unlucky,” says Mako.


	6. Chapter 5

Briefly, very briefly, over the tail end of 2023 and the start of 2024, they get another scientist.

This is the worst possible thing.

Newton hates it. He hates it the moment the email comes through and he hates it later when one of the personnel comes to inform them, officially, of the change in circumstances.

They have to move their blood. With only the two of them in the lab they’ve quickly become complacent, leaving empty plastic bags obvious at the top of the biohazard bin and a saucepan stained on the hotplate. (They requested a blood warmer, were denied a blood warmer, Newton tried to claim the blood warmer was for medication Hermann needed for his leg, Hermann called him ableist and hit him with his cane, Newton cried abuse and threw a pen at him, and they never ended up getting a blood warmer. They heat their blood in the microwave if they’re lazy or in the saucepan if they’re not feeling like minor erythrocyte damage. It’s not a problem for either blood transfusions or vampire nutrition, but it does make the blood taste odd. A bit like boiled milk.)

Worse, Newton’s turned the fridge in his room into an extra bookshelf and they’ve both expanded into the other rooms along the hallway. It’s not just the mess in the labs, Hermann’s books or Newton’s cluster of old lamps and empty fish bowls and old keyboards. They’ve expanded.

Newton’s slowly been having books sent over from New York, and slowly collected half a drum kit, much to Hermann’s dismay, while Hermann’s got his own books and memorabilia, and - embarrassingly - more clothes than he strictly needs.

They’ve been goldfish, taking up all the available space, and they’ve enjoyed it.

The first concern is where to put the scientist. Well, the first concern is if Pentecost might reconsider accepting her transfer, but when he rejects that proposal the concern is where to put her. Hermann doesn’t want to move his clothes - ugly old man sweaters, Newton shrieks after him, while Hermann shouts back that maybe, just maybe, Newton could stop collecting junk like a magpie and move all the rubbish out of the room closest to his.

“It’s not junk, it’s treasure.” Then, a moment later, “I’m a fucking dragon, not a bird, you old bastard!”

And so it goes.

Eventually they agree on emptying room IX, that being the one with the least amount of stuff in it. Their method of cleaning that room is to dump all the stuff from it into one of the others. Hermann would complain, but complaining would imply he wants to clean and he really does not want to clean. They leave the mess. They’ll deal with it some other day when kaiju aren’t breaking out of a crack between universes.

She arrives on a Monday afternoon, and both of them are sleeping. She walks into a silent lab where everything is nearly neat and a kitchen that’s been cleaned, and absolutely no indication of what she’s in for.

Hermann wakes up first, pushes Newton off of him and dresses. He knows the scientist is arriving soon but doesn’t know when, precisely, he should expect her. He puts blood into a dark mug he finds on his bedroom desk and heats it up in the microwave. Sipping at that he wanders out into the lab.

She’s there.

She’s wearing a red turtleneck and has earrings that are appalling given the setting but her black hair is pulled back into an explosive ponytail and Hermann couldn’t care less about lab appropriate attire.

He is in love.

She turns at the noise of the door opening and smiles at him.

He is so very much in love.

“Hello,” she says, stepping forward, hand held out. “I’m Vanessa Mynna.”

Her accent is beautiful. Her hands are lovely.

He fumbles between his mug and his cane and she laughs and eventually they manage to shake hands.

Her skin is soft, and warm.

“Hermann,” he says, and then, belated, “Doctor Gottlieb.”

“With the Jaeger program!”

“Kaiju, now, but yes. Your accent…”

She flashes him a bright smile. “I’m Tanzanian. You’re… English?”

“Most recently, yes, but I was born in Germany.”

He feels German, at least, German all the way through down to his bones. All his family is German; Lars did not travel far to find him siblings.

“Das ist fantastisch,” she grins. “Aber, ich kann neur ein bissung Deutsch sprechen.”

“Na mimi hakuna kusema… ah, Swahili.”

“Kiswahili,” Vanessa provides.

“Right,” he blushes, beautiful high colour through his cheeks and spreading down his neck. Newton loves that blush, and Vanessa smiles a little to see it. She looks around, though, saving him the embarrassment of scrutiny.

“I wasn’t sure anyone was here.”

He manages to find his tongue. “Regular sleeping habits are a little less than regular, you’ll find.” He straightens his shoulders. “Can I show you around your laboratory?”

“Yes, please! I’ve had a poke around but I didn’t want to touch the wrong thing.”

“Very wise. Newton’s side is a veritable biohazard,” he growls, with his usual ire. She shoots him a look of mild confusion, but doesn’t want to ask the wrong thing about his lab partner. She knows there’s two. She’s heard they don’t get along.

“Do you not have a separate section for dissections?”

“I am afraid not,” says Hermann. “I have requested, but we simply do not have the money to provide the sort of facilities required. What you see here is what we’ve got, and we’re unlikely to ever get more.”

That’s a lie, though. On occasion a few new things - new samples, a few hardware fixes for the hologram - get delivered. Hermann doesn’t really know where they come from and Newton insists he does not ask, in case they’re mistakes and asking will result in them being taken away.

Vanessa is a pharmacologist by trade, it seems, a chemical engineer graduate who needed a steady job until the kaiju came and gave her a new direction. She coos over some of Newton’s machines and stares at the samples without touching. She tells him she can play the piano, and he tells her, rather regretfully, that the instrument in the corner is badly out of tune. That does not keep Newton from playing it, of course, but it seems Vanessa has a far more refined taste than Newton, and she frowns and avoids touching the keys.

He keeps talking and she nods and smiles, as though nothing he could say would ever be boring.

When Hermann shows her the hologram machine she breathes out a long sigh.

“I’ve never used one of these, we didn’t have one at Salaam.” She looks at Hermann. “Can I?”

He sits and slots in one of the discs in the stack and shows her the inner workings of Gipsy Danger’s left leg, and she puts her hand on the keyboard with his to try to navigate. He flinches without meaning to.

“Sorry, uh, sorry… Here,” he stands up from his chair and waves his hand in the hologram. The pieces of light shift around his hand. “See?”

This is how Newton finds them half an hour later when he wakes up, Vanessa laughing and Hermann almost smiling, pulling a Jaeger apart synthesised muscle fibre by synthesised muscle fibre.

He stops and stares, midway through redoing his tie.

“Hiiiii,” he says uncertainly. “You’re new.”

“Yes!” she pulls herself away from Hermann with a look that seems almost regretful. Newton’s a little fuzzy from sleep and the only thing on his lips is the need to tell Hermann his weird-ass dream about kaiju and mermaids. He doesn’t quite catch her name when she gives it and stares a little too long in the silence that follows. He realises they’re waiting.

“Oh! Um, I’m Newton Gottlieb. Fuck, no, that’s Doctor Geiszler.” Newton blinks, points at Hermann. “Hermann Geiszler.” Herman lifts an eyebrow. “Oh, hell, I’m going back to bed,” growls Newton, turning and disappearing into the kitchen.

Hermann stares after him, blinking. After a beat he half turns to Vanessa. “One moment,” he says, and hurries after Newton and finds him in the kitchen.

“What the fuck was that?” asks Newton, to himself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, it’s,” he sags against the bench. Sweeps a hand through his hair. “I think it’s a bad day.”

Hermann leans in and kisses Newton’s forehead. “I love you.”

“Don’t patronise me,” says Newton. He waves his hand at the lab. “She already thinks I’m a joke.” He turns and stamps his foot with irritation, and then sags against the bench again.

“Newton,” says Hermann, softly, into his ear, wrapping his arms around him and leaning against his back. “I love you. You’re not a joke.” He kisses his hair, behind his ear. “Are you alright to come meet Vanessa? I think you’ll like her.”

“After that embarrassment?” cries Newton.

Hermann tugs on Newton’s hand. “Come on. She does chemicals. She’ll help you save the world.”

“I’ve got you for that,” says Newton, but he follows Hermann out to the lab, where Vanessa is waiting with a slightly confused grin. “I’m Newton Geiszler.”

“You sure?” she asks.

“Definitely,” he says. “I hear you like chemicals.”

Hermann and Newton have been... involved for only a few years. A blink, really, in the life of a vampire, and Lord knows – what Lord there might be – that few vampires can sustain a relationship with anyone bar a blood relative for very long at all.

Vanessa has come.

She is human, and she is beautiful, both physically and intellectually. She is, perhaps, not quite as naturally brilliant as either of them, but what she lacks in born-intellect she makes up for with calm logic and studious knowledge.

She knows things that Newton does not, and she talks freely, happily, easily to Hermann, in a way that Newton cannot. He has no idea how to. Conversation between them is scarcely conversation, it is a constant argument, and they both love it, would have it no other way.

Vanessa does not argue with Hermann and Hermann does not argue with Vanessa, and they sit together at dinner and laugh.

Newton notices and he doesn’t notice, because Vanessa’s only human, and Newton rarely eats dinner with Hermann, anyway. He doesn’t notice in the same way he doesn’t notice that Mako or Tendo sometimes eat dinner with Hermann: it’s unimportant.

But he does notice how Vanessa looks at Hermann. How Vanessa looks at both of them, how Vanessa talks to them. She acts as though she needs to take sides in a fight, and she has taken Hermann’s.

This amuses Newton more than irritates him. He knows that most people get their relationship wrong, but now everyone knows and it’s so strange to have someone not knowing again.

He rather suspects that Vanessa thinks Hermann is heterosexual, which is laughable – she certainly had no idea about Newton, and blinked a little awkwardly when he mentioned an ex who had happened to be male. A week or two later he commented about a woman he used to know, she’d turned to him, confused. She hadn’t asked the question he’d known was on her lips.

(He’s lived a thousand years and he is always, as they say, ‘coming out’.)

So no, Newton doesn’t mind that Vanessa’s paying more attention to Hermann, because there’s kaiju to fight and a war to be won and fun to be had. It feels a little joyfully evil, anyway, to keep them a sort-of secret.

He sneaks into Hermann’s room late one morning and kisses him hard, hungry, and only after he has carefully and quietly closed the metal door. He sneaks out again before Vanessa would have returned from her lunch break, and he sleeps in his own room.

Hermann is bemused and distracted, and doesn’t seem to notice much of anything. If he does, he doesn’t say, but in telling this story I assure you, he doesn’t notice. His mind is too cluttered with everything else to notice something as mundane as the particular expression on a human’s face as she looks at him.

 

 

Vanessa asks Hermann to dinner.

It’s a week before Christmas and Christmas itself is always a dreary affair. Hermann doesn’t really celebrate it, since the occasion reminds him too much that he is irritated by the existence of his entire species, and his family in particular, while Newton can’t really be bothered with it anymore.

Vanessa is far from home and far from family, and she’s not really made any friends here yet. She’s friendly, sure, and when she walks into the dining hall people nod and smile at her, but there’s still a barrier. She’s not quite yet one of us.

She asks Hermann to dinner, and Hermann says yes.

Newton’s not in the lab when she asks, having gone down to Medical to advise on a particular drug to help with the Blue Pollution problem, and when he comes back he goes straight to bed – Hermann’s bed, but Hermann doesn’t wake him when he shuffles in beside him and overall there is an entirely lack of communication regarding Vanessa.

Vanessa dresses up for their dinner; Hermann does not. Hermann puts on shiny shoes and a shirt he suspects he bought some time back in the early 1900s. He laces his shoes, kisses Newton’s shoulder, and steps out into the hallway to find Vanessa standing there in a gorgeous red sweater dress that hugs her perfectly. Hermann might not be thrilled with the concept of sex but he is quite an expert at attraction.

Vanessa is beautiful. She is beautiful from head to toe, and Hermann is quite delighted with the idea of having dinner with her.

She is beautiful and a cloud of exquisite perfume follows her as she steps up beside Hermann. He offers his arm, an automatic gesture from centuries of doing the same, and she smiles and perhaps blushes. They run into Mako on the way out and she asks where Newton is. Hermann shrugs. Sleeping, he thinks, or maybe in the bath.

“There’s baths?” asks Vanessa.

“In my room,” says Hermann, gesturing with the cane. “If you ever want one you need only warn me first so I can ensure it’s clean.”

“I have some data from the simulator that I would like him to run over,” says Mako.

“If he’s sleeping wake him up,” says Hermann. “He’s lazy enough as it is.”

Vanessa shakes her head after Mako has gone. “I can’t figure you and him out. Do you hate him?”

“To his core,” says Hermann automatically. “Though after so many years I suppose one becomes used to him. Even tolerates.” He wrinkles his nose slightly, but if anyone knew Hermann they’d see the fond expression on his face. “Enough of him, however, if you get me started you will lose me to a rant, and you don’t want that, I think.”

Vanessa wants Hermann to just keep talking, but to have him talk about another person is… undesirable. She leads him away to a cab and asks him about his education, and he falls into a long and complicated discussion of Cambridge, trying to puzzle together his favourite aspects into something that sounds like a recent century.

Mako knocks on Newton’s door and then on Hermann’s, eventually finding him lying on Hermann’s bed in a towel and staring idly up at the ceiling.

“You’ve moved in?” asks Mako, because unlike Vanessa she’s been around long enough and listens to enough conversations to know what’s what.

Newton snorts. “Like Herm’d let me do that. What’ve you got there?”

“Data from the training simulator, and suggested modifications from Russia. Tendo said you were not doing much here, and would welcome the distraction.”

“Hells yeah I would,” says Newton, making sure the towel is in place before getting up and taking the clipboard off her, holding it close to his face to accommodate for his lack of glasses. “Ugh, of course it’s that.” He looks at her across the top of the clipboard. “Ms Yinto,” he bites it out, “from Panama did these pieces. What happened to her?”

“Funding cuts,” says Mako.

“Good, she was rubbish. Should have let me do it from the get-go.”

Mako raises her eyebrows. “You do not have the time.”

“Can make the time. Who needs sleep? Anyway, I have time now.”

“There will be more kaiju,” says Mako. “You will not always have time.”

“Oh, go away, you with your intelligent arguments,” laughs Newton. “Tell Hermann to be a dear and make me a coffee.”

“Doctor Gottlieb is out,” says Mako.

“I thought LOCCENT was done with him for the week.”

“He has left the Shatterdome.”

Newton blinks. “We’re talking about the same guy here? Bad hair, bad clothes, bad face, bad, well, just all around not a great person to be with.” Mako simply keeps his gaze, waiting. “Seriously? He went out without me? What a jerk.”

“I believe he is going into the city with Vanessa.”

Newton opens his mouth, and then, very carefully, closes it. “Huh,” he says. “Well.” He shakes the clipboard. “Thanks for the entertainment.”

 

Hermann asks Vanessa about her day and she tells him, and they talk and talk and it’s so easy to slip into this pretended human life. He tells of his family, adding pieces from the Tenth Century to what he considers to be his family now, layers over it with a snippet from a movie and then forces the conversation back to her.

He doesn’t want to talk about himself, he assures her. He wants her to tell him about herself.

He’s never been to Tanzania, not even when it wasn’t Tanzania, though he has done research with someone from Kenya, hence, he explains, his limited ability to speak Swahili. Her German is limited to pieces left over from German East Africa, and they both keep to English.

They linger, finishing wine and having dessert, and Hermann picks at his food because he hasn’t consumed so much all in one sitting in years and years. He does like hearing Vanessa talk, though.

It feels so refreshingly normal. He harbours no desires regarding that; he knows what he is, but it is nice to sit at a table with a human discussing work and childhood habits that linger over into adulthood, to watch her break down into laughter before she’s finished telling a story from her high school days.

She bumps close to him as they walk out into the night. It’s not raining but it promises to, and she says that it would be fantastic if it does. She loves rain, it seems, and she walks close to Hermann but he doesn’t notice until her hand is against the back of his that it seems to be on purpose.

Hermann’s thinking about what Newton said about phases, how he used to be female and he was heterosexual for a time, and even (Newton had laughed a little ruefully at this) absolutely uninterested in sex for a while. Vanessa bumps her hand against Hermann’s and it’s only just now triggered with him that she means this to be more than colleagues out in an unfamiliar city.

He doesn’t know what to do about it, but more confusingly, he doesn’t know how he feels about it. Hermann prides himself on how self-aware he is. If he has an emotion he knows what it is and what’s causing it, and he knows how to fix it. He’s had a thousand years of approaching his self in a very empirical fashion.

Not knowing is uncomfortable.

He looks at it objectively. Vanessa is attractive. Beautiful. Wonderful. Dinner was a delight and it’s only this sick feeling in his stomach at the realisation of what she’s hoping for that makes him wonder if they’ll ever do it again. He wants to. He’s not felt this sort of connection with another human since, perhaps, Riemann, or, Euler, or -oh! Germain, what a brilliant person she had been! He misses her, both her mind and her company.

Vanessa is extremely intelligent, interesting, and it’s quite obvious that a lot of people like her, so being liked by her in turn is probably a compliment of some sorts.

Really, he’s flattered.

He’s just not particularly inclined to even begin attempting the sort of emotions she seems to be hoping for in return. Even physically.

He thinks he’s in a phase. A ‘more than hyposexual but only for Newton’ phase. He tries to imagine kissing Vanessa, and can’t; he tries to imagine holding her hand and for a brief moment has no idea of the appeal of physical contact, until he is reminded (he is reminded every five minutes without cause, like a human new at love) of Newton.

He moves half an inch away from her hand. If Vanessa has any knowledge of his realisation and consequential reluctance she makes no sign of it, talking just as freely and invading his personal space just as casually.

She is a delight to talk with. Everything is new and fresh for Vanessa. Hermann has to explain some things to her, he’ll say phrases and she won’t understand and he’s not had to expound on his personality - his mathematics and theories and engineering, yes, but his personality? He has not had to explain that to anyone in a very long time.

It is a delight to have the ability to remake himself in front of other person.

 

 

Newton isn’t there when they get back, but his music is blaring so it’s obvious he’s not gone far. Hermann takes off his scarf and loops it over the back of a chair, considers doing the same with his jacket and decides it’s a little too cold in here for that. That means the thermostat is down, and that means that Newton plans to do dissections today.

That means he’ll insist on his own music, even if it is Hermann’s day to choose.

“I had fun tonight,” Vanessa interrupts his thoughts.

“Yes,” he smiles. “So did I.”

“We should do it again.”

Hermann’s frowning at JAX-I and doesn’t register her words immediately. “Yes,” he says, glancing up at her. “We should.”

She comes close to him, closer than anyone bar Newton has bothered standing in a long while, and he only just then understands her implications. Too late, though, she’s already leaning in and up and kissing him. She misses his lips, barely, brushing the corner of his mouth before shifting and catching his mouth properly in hers.

He doesn’t move, one hand on his cane and the other still poised over JAX-I’s control panel.

“Vanessa,” he says, her lips still on him. “There appears to be some misunderstanding.”

She steps back and any further conversation is cut by the door sliding open and Newton entering. He’s whistling, and it’s obviously washing day: he’s wearing tight jeans that sag at the crotch and sit low on his hips, and his shirt is a pinkish grey from overwear.

He sees them and stares. He blinks. Looks Hermann up and down and narrows his eyes.

“I brought you coffee,” he says. “But now I’m going to drink it.”

And then he stalks over to his side of the room; on the way he turns up the music to full blast.

Vanessa watches him go, and then looks at Hermann.

Hermann is looking after Newton as though he’s just been kicked, all shock and hurt there on the surface of his skin.

“I’m going to go to bed,” she decides, and neither man notices her leave.

“Newton,” says Hermann.

Newton looks up from snapping on gloves. “No,” he annunciates clearly, and then he gets to work and refuses to indulge Hermann in any conversation. Hermann sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, just in case Newton is listening, but he’s not, and he sags and hits JAX-I to get it started.

They finally talk at around three, when Newton goes into the kitchen to heat some blood and Hermann notices and quickly follows.

 “Why’d you say yes?” asks Newton as he presses ‘start’ on the microwave, and the whirr is loud despite the noise of music coming from the next room.

“To dinner?”

“Yes, to dinner! Don’t play dumb! She’s been all over you since she got here, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Are you jealous?”

“What?” shrieks Newton. The microwave beeps finished.

“Is no one else allowed to notice me? Do you think me so ugly that only you could ever love me?”

“Dude -!”

“I did not realise her intentions,” Hermann snaps. “If I had I would have dissuaded her. I have no desire for anyone who is not you, even if you are happy enough to have it off with Tendo and god knows who else!”

Newton just stares. “That’s unfair!” he shouts, a belated response. “You told me I could with Tendo, and anyway, I didn’t! I didn’t want to! He kissed me, nothing more.”

“Oh,” Hermann manages, an ineloquent sound as they stand several feet apart, anger full inside them and nowhere to put it.

Newton backtracks. “How did you not notice?” he asks, even though he didn’t notice and has only just now pieced all the obvious evidence together. “She was all over you, dude.”

“I had no knowledge of your attraction to me,” Hermann replies stiffly.  

“Whatever,” says Newton. “You told me to have it off with Tendo if I wanted. I should give you the same courtesy. You like her, right?”

“She is an interesting person,” says Hermann, afraid that he will say the wrong thing, imply too much emotion. “I enjoy her company. But I do not like -” he shifts, and remakes that sentence, “my attraction to her is purely platonic.”

“Why do you like me?” asks Newton suddenly. “Why me, and not her?”

They have never had this conversation. Their relationship is unspoken, beyond boundaries and the like. They have never discussed the whys and wherefores of their emotions for each other.

“She doesn’t understand me,” says Hermann, the words sliding off his tongue without thought, as he can around Newton. He can speak without thinking and not have to worry about emotions or his species. He remembers the camels, and the annotation in that book written thirteen years after last they had contact. He wonders how long Newton’s been in love with him; he wonders how long _he_ has been in love with Newton without noticing it.

“Not just what I am, but who I am. I had to explain myself to her. It was an interesting experience, but I have little desire to repeat it.” He laughs, softly. “I said I had a dog as a child because of Marley and Me.” Newton shakes his head and looks at his feet, and Hermann steps closer. “You, Newton,” he touches Newton’s cheek. “You understand me, through to my core. I would be unable to fathom eternity with anyone other than you.”


	7. Chapter 6

They’re sitting in one of the rec rooms and they’ve got whiskey and wine, which the vampires have said no to, and pistachios, which Hermann is, inexplicably, peeling and chewing with long fingers and careful delicacy.

It makes Newton’s mouth a bit dry, and it makes his groin hot. He focuses very carefully on a point beyond Tendo’s head until it goes away.

They’re playing Truth or Dare, because they’re adults all living in the same enclosed metal tin and there’s a point, it seems, where everyone finds out what everyone else is up for so that, if you want, you can get it easily. Anything from casual sex to a good long D&M. (And god, too many of these people were in high school too recently, using that sort of terminology. Hermann wants to complain, but Newton would point out that he still interjects Latin into everyday conversation as if they’re going to bump into Darwin around the next corner. Which. He’d have a fit at the kaiju, probably. Both Hermann and Newton would like to see that, though neither of them met the man.)

“Best sex,” is the question fired at Newton next, and he pauses to consider.

“Last month, him and me,” he jerks his head at Hermann. “That was rockin’.”

Jason makes a disappointed noise while Yin with confusion, having thought that Hermann and Newton argue because they hate each. “You and him?” asks Jason. “That’s what you’re going with?”

“Oh, you want a story? O-okay,” says Newton, dragging it out to consider. “Alright, this isn’t the best but it was really good. Japan, years ago.”

“When were you in Japan?” interrupts Mako.

“Literal years,” laughs Newton. “I was the deso driver for Mother,” by which he means he’d been loitering in an alleyway waiting for his Mother after a show, having made sure there was a rickshaw waiting around to take her back to her room. “And there was this,” he frowns. “It was theatre, so I wasn’t sure at first. I thought it was a guy, and this was,” he bit back ‘the nineteenth century’, and instead said, “not an area where that sort of thing was… okay.” He considers Japan. “Still isn’t okay, I guess. And they were bee-yout-a-ful,” he draws out. “Japanese makeup, man, it was like, crucial in my sexual becoming.” Hermann makes a noise. “What? Just cos you’re -” He quickly bites back what he was about to say, while Hermann narrows his eyes at him. “I didn’t mean that. I swear.” Hermann’s still frowning. “I love you?”

“Amor caecus est,” grumbles Hermann.

“Whatever, dude. So this guy, he’s in full dress and makeup and he’s sort of stumbled out of the theatre, and I’m thinking shit, he’s hot, but no way can I go there, given the time and place and all that.”

“And you were waiting for your Mother,” says Yin.

Newton laughs. “She’s seen me doing much worse,” he grins. Hermann scowls again, and Newton turns on him. “And what? Your childhood was pure perfection?”

“My Father gave me a library and left me alone,” says Hermann, haughtily.

“Explains a lot,” mumbles Rachel, and Newton glares, because only he’s allowed to tease Hermann like that. And maybe Tendo’s allowed, too. He makes an irritated noise and decides they don’t deserve the full story.

“Anyway, so actually under all that they were female and fully up for lifting their skirt for a quick on in the alley, and it was fantastic. Who’s turn is it next?”

“Mine,” says Hermann, with some dread. “Truth.” They’ve all been doing truths. Dares tend to require moving, which is a dreadful amount of effort and far too inconvenient to even consider.

“Oo! I get to ask,” says Newton.

“Jesus,” sighs Yin.

Newton swivels in his seat to look at Hermann. “Now, this is important.”

“I’m sure,” says Hermann, looking across the table to see Tendo rolling his eyes.

“The Gerd Müller Theory.” Hermann goes still. “That was named after Gerd Müller, right?”

“Who?” asks Hermann, faintly.

“Oh, you know,” says Newton lightly, but he is grinning, he is on fire, he read the Wikipedia page like twenty times and found as many photos as he had time to find before giving into his idea and deciding he was right. “Sixty-eight goals over sixty-two international appearances, and a goal for every day of the year in four hundred and twenty seven games. That Gerd Müller.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” says Hermann.

“It’s Truth or Dare, not Evade the Question or Dare,” says Newton. “Fess up!”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” says Yin, to Mako. Mako shakes her head.

“Just answer this. Did you have a thing for Gerd Müller?”

“Hotel room,” says Hermann, quick and quiet. Newton just stares.

“Really? No, fucking, really? Hermann, my Hermann?” He grabs Hermann’s face between his hands and yanks their noses together. “Seriously? You dog!”

Hermann pulls himself away with a slight scowl on his face. “Quite,” he says.

 

 

The first day of 2024 is a Monday, and everyone is hungover. Hermann wakes up on Newton’s floor. It was that kind of night.

New Years are big milestones when everyday feels like it’s about to be the last, and if there’s anything the PPDC can do its party hard.

Newton and Hermann got drunk fast and spent a lot of time hanging off each other, which embarrasses Hermann no end. There’s dark memories of licking Newton’s face, in front of everyone! Of sliding his fingers beneath Newton’s jacket and shirt to run his fingers over rainbow skin… He groans rubs his back and his leg and uses Newton’s chest to push himself up.

Newton grunts and tries to hit Hermann on the ankle, but Hermann’s already shambling off down the hall to his own room where he can have, he hopes, a hot bath. In the end it’s merely lukewarm, but Newton comes and gives him a cup of tea and a short glass of blood and an aspirin.

The day goes slowly, and Tendo sends Hermann an email. Thankfully it’s Hermann, because Newton has a godawful screeching sound on his computer, and they’re both hurting and unable to cope with any noises. They’re each in their own respective areas trying to remind their bodies that breathing is not really that much of a necessity. Vanessa’s somewhere. Neither can remember seeing her the night before.

They have another pint of blood each and struggle down to one of the rec rooms where a movie’s just about to start.

“Sorry,” says Tendo, as they sit. “I put them to a vote and this is what they chose.”

Hermann gets offered a place on the couch and Newton sits on the floor between his legs, resting his head on the cushion between his knees.

“What movie is it?” asks Newton, too loud, and Hermann winces and pulls his hair and someone else shushes them all.

The movie is _Only Lovers Left Alive_.

It leaves them both a little shaken. Afterwards people go to have a late dinner and Herman and Newton are pulled along in their wake.

“I blame Dracula,” says Hermann, not at all quietly. Everyone else is talking about vampires. “If Bram hadn’t written that godawful novel.”

“It’s not awful,” Alison protests, lacing her fingers with Tendo’s.

“It’s awful,” says Newton, and the simple fact that Hermann and Newton are agreeing shocks Alison into silence.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” asks Tendo.

Vanessa cuts in.

“I think it was beautiful. Who picked it? I loved it. It was so adorable and,” she blushes a little, “sexy. And I loved that they weren’t even in the same place. That’s so accurate, I think, I mean, if I were immortal and I had found the one person I want to be with, I’d be able to be with them even if I were on a different continent. And they were so lovely together, they just got each other.”

“What do you think?” asks Tendo, again, when Vanessa’s gone to get food and taken Alison with her.

“It is accurate,” says Hermann, slowly. “Living forever does cause a particular strain. You have to stay focused on what’s important.”

Tendo looks between them. “Love?”

Newton snorts. “Science!”

“Maths,” says Hermann. “Not that garbage you’ve been enamoured with for the last ten centuries.”

“Whatever, dude. I’m gonna be a rockstar and save the world and you’ll still be trying to figure out what kind of buttplug the Breach looks like.”

“Newton!” exclaims Hermann, but Newton only grins.

“What wouldn’t I give for Tilda Swinton, instead of you,” sighs Hermann.

Tendo slaps his shoulder and laughs. “Luck of the draw, brother.”

Hermann makes an unintelligible sound that suggests he really would rather not have entered the lottery if this is his prize.

Allison calls for Tendo, and Tendo nods across to her. “Coming to eat with us?”

“I’m pretty far gone,” says Newton. “Hot cup of chocolate and off to bed for me.” He shifts his stance and nudges his toe against Hermann’s meaningfully.

“I have some equations to feed into JAX-I,” Hermann says, which is what he does immediately that they return to the lab, and Newton whines, because didn’t Hermann get that Newton wants to get laid, like, now, and how fucking cool was that movie, really?

“It was alright, I suppose.”

“Are we gonna be like that in a hundred years? God, I hope so.”

“Yes, but who is who?” asks Hermann as he wakes up his computer and tries to start JAX-I. “I have no desire to live in Detroit.”

“Detroit is rubbish,” says Newton, with all the confidence of someone who has never been to Detroit. “We’ll make our own story. Wanna do it in my room?”

“You flit from romantic to frat boy in less than a second. Your room is a mess. If you’re making hot chocolate you best not spill it in my bed.”

“You wanna cup?”

“I will have tea,” says Hermann stiffly. He hits JAX-I with his cane, and the monitor flickers into focus. “And you will not bring those god-awful toys into my room. You can play with them when I am in Auckland and you’re in Port Louis.”

“Mauritius? Nah, dude, if I’m gonna be there it’s gotta be Quatre Bornes.”

“With only two thousand square kilometres I don’t think your hypothetical home away from me on an island needs so much precision. Go make my tea.”

“Promise to fuck me?”

Hermann sighs, loudly, and glares. “Yes, Newton, I promise to penetrate your anus with my erect penis resulting in both of us ejaculating.”

“Oh, Hermann,” Newton swoons. “I love it when you talk biological to me.”

“Make my tea.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hermann shakes his head and begins typing in numbers, and mutters, “I don’t know if I love you or if this is some horrid form of Stockholm.”

“I heard that.”

 

 

It’s February 29, 1732. Tomorrow, Joseph Haydn will be born. Later that year Emperor Reigen of Japan will die at age 79.

Neither Newton nor Hermann tend to keep up with world events. Even in the future they don’t, despite how easy it is with the internet. (In 2131 there’s a satellite malfunction and the entire thing crashes through the atmosphere to land in Oregon. Hermann finds out about it three weeks after the event, and Newton doesn’t know about it at all.)

Newton is busy reading pamphlets by Herman Boerhaave, while Hermann is learning about Delisle’s temperature scale and trying to keep out of George’s way.

That being King George II. George has taken an interest in Hermann’s vast knowledge and Hermann, for his part, and decides that life would be better if he was far, far away from the King’s changeable moods and bad breath. Only, he doesn’t like ships and he’s tired of being the strange white man unable to fathom the sun, so he rejects an offer to journey to Angola and goes instead to Ireland.

This is interesting, because only a few years before Newton left for North America and had met the girl who would become Anne Bonny.

Hermann doesn’t meet any pirates in Ireland. He doesn’t really meet anyone. He keeps himself to himself and walks over sheep paths at night, watching the stars and wearing too many clothes.

Newton, in Connecticut, rolls over in bed and pulls a pillow to himself. He’s cold and mumbling, unaware that he is doing so. His house servant, out in the hallway, hears him and shakes her head at her employer’s antics.  

They haven’t written each other in thirteen years, even though Newton’s desk drawer is filled with drafts and the ashes of Hermann’s fire has similar attempts.

They haven’t seen each other since 1660.

Neither of them are sure if they are still friends.

 

(A few days into March, 1732, there’s a dead body in Quinnipiac River, caught against the stones of one of the bridges. A month later there’s another, and sure humans seem to die all the time but these are uncomfortably damaged. The Major Newton is friends with seems to believe it is the result of some kind of devil-cultists, while his son insists that it’s a serial murderer. Newton hears about it during dinner, and he leaves New Haven the next day.)

 

 

 

 

Newton asks Hermann, very casually, if he’s ever determined if a vampire can Drift. Hermann says no, he’s never considered it, and five days later they’re still arguing the point, and today Tendo has stepped in just in time to catch it billowing up again.

“It’s not like there’s a lot of us willing to sit down and do science. He!” Newton extends one wavering finger and jabs it at Hermann. He’s probably had too much coffee. Or. Not enough sleep. A bad balance of blood to sleep to coffee, probably. His mind is shaky.

They’ve been arguing science for days - vampire science. Newton brought it up but he’s thinking of the kaiju. He needs to know more, and he can’t study them directly and these samples are not enough.

Nothing is enough and the world is going to end.

Newton might vomit his mind out of his head, if he’s not careful. He closes his hand into a fist and tries to shove it into his pocket, but his pants are too tight and he’s sitting down so he ends up just punching himself in the thigh. “He refused to get an MRI.”

“It was the seventies!” Hermann shoots back, and he’s been sleeping and eating just fine so he’s in fine form, while Newton’s a little squeaky and he’s not entirely sure that Tendo hasn’t gone fuzzy around the edges. Pixelated. Do people do that? He should probably sit down. “Any scan would have been rudimentary at best, and where do you think I would have found an MRI machine?”

“In Nottingham,” Newton argues back, while Tendo watches on, not bothered by them in the least.

Vanessa is not there.

Vanessa left in February, and they miss her. They don’t say they miss her, but it’s pretty obvious to them both that the other is silently upset that the third presence is gone.

Of course, it does mean that earlier that evening Newton had the freedom to shout “heads” moments before throwing a bag of blood across the room at Hermann’s back. Hermann had swung with his cane in hand and to the shock of them both he hit the bag and lobbed it neatly back over at Newton, who, startled, caught it without thinking.

“Nottingham is one hundred and forty kilometres from Cambridge!” Hermann shouts in response, utterly unconcerned that the two of them are scarcely twelve metres apart and they needn’t be quite so loud.

“In any case,” Newton turns back to Tendo’s question, which had been asked forty minutes before and still hasn’t been answered, “no, I don’t know why we don’t show up in mirrors.”

They miss Vanessa. Hermann especially misses Vanessa. He’s emailed her, and she’s emailed back, but it’s not the same.

He does not have time to think about it, though. He does not have the luxury for such emotions.

They focus.

The end of the world is coming.

They have to stop it.

“But you show up in photographs,” Tendo presses.

“Digital,” says Hermann in that awful prissy voice he gets. Newton hates him, today. “We show up in digital photographs, but not other kinds.”

“Thank fuck, y’know?” says Newton, and yeah, he definitely needs to sit down.

Oh. He is sitting. Perhaps he should sit down lower. The floor, or the basement, or the centre of the earth.

It’d be warm there. He thinks he’s cold, but he might be shaking from the caffeine.

“Can you imagine how inconvenient it would be if,” here his voice is definitely far more high-pitched than it has any reason to be, “our faces didn’t show up in our IDs? Bad enough back in the day trying to angle yourself so there was always a person between you and the-” he slips, catches himself on the edge of the desk and holds him there. “Mirror,” he says, faintly, and Tendo catches him.

He wakes up on the couch with blood in his mouth and Tendo looking down at him with a frown. Then Hermann butts in.

“Honestly, Newton, you’re ruining our reputation.”

“Like you care,” slurs Newton. The blood is very good. Hermann’s blood? He tries to focus on the man but he’s got his sleeves rolled down.

“You are meant to be a bit more savage and a little less forgetful,” says Tendo.

Whatever. Newton keeps drinking. This is good. This is really good. He closes his eyes and just drinks.

He hears the clack of Hermann’s cane on the metal floor and kind of gets what Tendo means. There’s Eric Northman drinking blood from a torn aorta like it’s a straw, and then there’s these two scientists.

Thing is, fiction he might be, Eric Northman is a puppy compared to some vampires. Hell, Franklin’s a fucking walk in the park compared to some vampires.

And actual vampires cannot text that fast. This is a pity, and Newton spent at least thirty minutes trying to text as fast as Franklin before giving up in disgust at the inaccuracies of media and what it does to his self esteem.

Newton’s been thinking a lot about True Blood lately, mostly because the idea of synthetic blood is beautiful. No actual humans involved.

His eyes fly open.

“Is this yours?” he asks Hermann.

Hermann looks away, an unhappy curve in his lip.

“It’s mine,” says Tendo.

“Oh,” Newton’s eyes slide closed. That explains why it’s so warm, and warm is delicious. “Thank you,” he sighs, and continues to let it fill his mouth, mixing with his saliva, and a little venom, the relaxant that his fangs let loose and his mouth excretes merely at the promise of a meal.

He needs to study vampires. He needs to.

“When did he last sleep?” asks Tendo. Hermann answers, but Newton cannot concentrate on the words. He feels the bag of blood being taken from his mouth and he whines.

The words “oh, do shut up,” are said fondly, and he lets himself slip.

He sleeps.

 

Hermann looks down at Newton with a grimace, and drops the blood into the nearby yellow bin. He quickly and unconsciously wipes his fingers on his trousers. Tendo watches him, and then looks back at Newton. Hermann sees the slight puzzled look on his face.

“Do we disappoint you?” he asks, uncertain how he’d feel about that.

“I thought vampires - real vampires would be more enthusiastic about it all.”

“It’s the diet that disagrees,” says Hermann.

And the sun. God, he misses the sun.

He caught Newton watching a youtube clip of a sunrise, over and again and again and again, and it was a waste of time and data and there were more important things to be doing, and if it were a video of anything else he’d have told him off, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Don’t get me wrong,” says Tendo, peeling his eyes from Newton to look at Hermann. “This is better. I just forget.” His hands touch the bandaid in the crook of his arm.

“It’s ridiculous how the others live,” says Hermann, feeling a venom in his voice that he hasn’t conveyed before, not properly. “Taking and taking.” He looks down at Newton and looks almost… fond. Gentler, as though he’s forgotten Tendo is even there. “We require blood to live. But we should not take.” He gestures at Tendo. “It should be like that. Giving. An offering.”

Tendo’s fingers grab the beads around his wrist, and he still wears them despite what he knows, despite this world they live in. “There is one God,” he says. Hermann’s gaze snaps to him. “You are not gods.”

“No,” says Hermann. He sneers at Newton, but the look somehow goes beyond Newton, beyond out into the world at large. “But many of us forget that.” Drawing himself up tall he continues. “If there were any way to live without the blood I would take it. Unfortunately, this is what I am, and I would not trade immortality for that.”

 

 

 

They don’t relax, because they can’t. They don’t have that luxury.

They take what they can where they can, and make do with what little they get. Newton sleeps with Hermann, curled up around him and Hermann permits this. They talk freely about themselves, about their myriad of memories. There’s no one to wonder at stories told in years before particular discoveries, of telegrams and posted letters and carriage rides and digging bodies out of the ground late at night before the law allowed them to dissect humans.

They force themselves to get out of the lab. They have to, for their own sanity.

"Do you want a banana?" asks Mako, just as they enter the rec room. Hermann shakes his head while Newton actually shudders. 

"Bananas? You call those bananas?"

Hermann puts a hand on Newton's arm. "Don't," he mutters. "She won't understand."

Newton wrestles himself away and sits with a huff. "Those are Cavendish, and Cavendish are not bananas." He crosses his arms over his chest and resettles his tie.

"Don't."

"Oh, you didn't have bananas at Cambridge, did you?" Newton sneers. 

"Newton," Hermann warns. 

"Oh, whatever, deal the cards," snaps Newton. To Hermann, quietly, he says, "It's always me running my mouth."

"Yes, my dear, but I'd have you no other way."

Newton shifts. It's a bad day, a manic day where he can't focus and he hates it. He feels as though he is wrestling with his own body just to keep it sitting, and he wants to explain exactly and precisely why these bananas will not do, and he wants to do it in a mix of old Japanese and old German and old Malay. 

Everything’s old.

It’s a bad day.

Hermann's the one with obvious problem, cane in his hands and bad haircut around stuck-out ears, but Newton's got his insides hurting him and hurting him forever. 

There's a sudden hand on his knee. 

"Newton," he says. Him, Hermann, bringing him back to the real world and it's not even been three years, not fully, he can't be bringing Newton back like this so easily so smoothly. That's Newton's job. He's got eternity, he's not meant to be relying on other people.

He wrenches himself away. 

"I'm going to go lie down," he mutters, a feeble excuse, because he doesn't. It's daytime still, just barely, and he checks his phone for the time just moments before opening the door to the outside, and hah! That'd be an embarrassing way to go. He decides he needs to work but he can't, he knows he can't because his mind won't focus, but he has to do something. He decides to start cleaning but cannot decide between his lab and his room. He drinks some blood hoping it will calm him down and that is when he gets the email. 

He's being transferred. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gerd Müller is a real person. Most characters introduced as historical figures are real people. This includes Newton's mother's namesake, "Takano", from Takano no Niigasa, who was the mother of Emperor Kammu, who reigned 781-806. My research includes Googling and quickly scanning Wiki. Apologies for all errors and inaccuracies, but probably King George had really bad breath. 
> 
> Amor caecus est - Love is blind


	8. Chapter 7

The day dawns sunny and bright, which neither Hermann nor Newton see, as both of them are sleeping. Hermann’s sprawled out on newly washed sheets, drooling slightly, a maid tiptoeing in to tend the fire, while Newton’s in a carriage.

Newton’s in a carriage and Hermann’s in a castle, and Newton is going to visit Hermann. They’re in Slovakia, or the Kingdom of Hungary, and it’s 1660 and it’s a Tuesday.

The weather is surprisingly kind for the location and time of year, but even so Newton is covered in clothes, half for warmth and half against any slivers of sun that might sneak through the cracks in the carriage curtains. He’s not seen Hermann in years, and he’s excited for this, their first meeting in so long. A real meeting, not an accident - though, Newton considers, perhaps he should have written ahead.

He didn’t for fear that Hermann would refuse to see him, which Newton suspects he would have ignored but this way he doesn’t have to feel that lingering guilt at ignoring Hermann.

Not keeping in touch with Hermann has meant that Newton was forced to spend years casually listening to all those rumours that any vampire who wants to live into the next century will listen to: stories about mysterious strangers who never leave their home, stories of animal attacks and demons and stories of magic and God’s wrath, bloodless children found in leafless woods, crows pecking out their eyes.

Newton heard those stories, and focused his attentions elsewhere.

Hermann’s not the sort to indulge in those kinds of activities. Hermann is rarely gossipped about, even in the vampire community where everyone knows everyone, it seems, though Newton tends to keep out of touch. Vampires make the worst friends.

The rumours about Hermann tell of just a man, a bit old and a bit funny, living in a castle with lots of books. He writes a lot of letters it seems, and has the occasional visitor, and enough servants that he’s not all together that mysterious. The locals rarely see him, but he’s an invalid, it seems, and it was that piece of information that made Newton certain that the man in question was Hermann.

Newton has a suitcase of books that is the perfect present for Hermann, and he’s got blood in a jar because honestly, who wants to rip open jugulars and dispose of bodies when you could bleed a person a little at a time? More fun for all involved, really.

Wait, that sounds like Newton _enjoys_ bleeding people. He really doesn’t. In the future he avoids even meat, and later (after the kaiju war) he becomes as vegan as a vampire is able to be. He likes people alive and living, so he takes a little blood from one person and then a little more from another, so no one suffers the damages of being enthralled and Newton does not suffer the damage of starvation.

Newton sleeps through the journey and wakes as the sun is setting and the carriage is pulling in front of an inn. He gets out, yawns and stretches and nods at his driver, who is busy wrangling the suitcase of books.

Newton slaps him on the back as he passes. “Relax, yeah? I don’t wanna go anywhere until tomorrow night. I’ll make sure you have a cushy room.”

The driver laughs. Newton’s not a bad master, all up. He doesn’t demand the horses be driven fast and sure he has some weird habits, but he pays well and he’s nearly always cheerful.

He sits in the main room of the inn and lets the talk of the townsfolk wash over him. The dialect here is a little different to what he’s used to, but this! This is his favourite thing. (Everything is his favourite thing. He’s one of those awful people who cannot decide on a Best Movie or Best Novel. Even holding a gun to his head he’d debate between The Lego Movie and The Shawshank Redemption, and then throw those out for Pulp Fiction, but oh my god, the Godzilla movies! Or Up! or there’s The Hunt or Dial M For Murder… See? Newton’s awful in love with the universe. He wants to engrave it all under his skin, bury himself in it and never ever forget. Immortality thrills him.)

Newton’s favourite thing is people just living their lives. The conversations about cows and children and dinner tomorrow night and one of the women who’s pregnant but her sister who isn’t, and travel and family and just, this! Life!

He drinks beer and listens to them and smiles, and eventually drags himself away to pretend to sleep. He takes out his box of insects, neatly pinned and labelled, and continues to carefully draw them out on creamy paper with the aid of several different microscopes. He does this until long into the next day, until there’s light slithering across the desk and he needs to wrap himself up in bed sheets or find himself with a hand on fire.

He thinks that’s how it works. He’s never really dared to test it.

His driver has the carriage ready and waiting, the horse standing patiently between the shafts waiting. Newton pats the horse, and the horse, used to him, snuffles his hand happily.

“You know the way?” Newton calls up to the man.

“Yes,” he returns.

“Books packed?”

The man laughs, because Newton’s been overly protective of those books since even before this journey, and his driver travelled hundreds of kilometres to buy some of them. “Strapped them in myself,” he promises.

“Excellent,” says Newton, and climbs into the carriage.

 

In retrospect, being a vampire showing up unannounced to another vampire’s abode was probably not Newton’s best decision ever.

Even with books. Even with very rare, only one or two in existence books.

His driver takes down the suitcase of books while Newton knocks enthusiastically on the door. It’s opened by a woman who looks more than a little suspicious at the sudden visitor to the out-of-the way castle. (It is a very small castle, as castles go, but a castle nonetheless.)

Newton grins at her. “Hello!” he says, and takes a step.

A vampire cannot freely enter the private residence of any human, they must be explicitly invited in by someone human whom the building recognises as a resident.

Newton goes to take a step and finds he cannot. The woman’s face goes hard.

“I’ll go fetch the Master,” she sneers at him. Newton looks behind at the driver, who shrugs and pats the horse’s ear. The driver is unaware of the existence of vampires, but he does have several theories about Newton’s peculiarities.

The woman returns with the Master in tow. He is severe in black with sharp cheekbones you could cut stone with. His eyes thin into oblivion as he glares at Newton.

“You,” he says.

“Hi, Siegfried. I brought books!” He gestures at the suitcase beside him. “Mightn’t I come in?”

“No.”

“But I came all this way!” he whines, “There’s books on algebra, and this really great one by Issac Newton - you have to meet him. Or at least write him! Tell him you’re a friend of mine and he’ll have to write back. He’s a real laugh. You’d really like him. He hates farming, for one. You should come to Cambridge and meet him! You’ve been to Cambridge before, haven’t you?”

“Goodbye,” says Hermann, and he leans on his cane to turn away, nodding at the woman to close the door. Newton is unable to put his hand in the house enough to stop it.

“I’m leaving for the New World.” Hermann pauses. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

Hermann sighs and gestures at the woman, who doesn’t look happy but she does sneer, “Please come in.”

Newton is surprised because a thrall is, by definition, unable to freely consent to anything a vampire requests, and he cannot fathom a world in which Hermann voluntarily lives in close proximity with humans.

“You’re the owner?” he asks, startled.

“Obviously,” says the woman, and she sweeps off into the house, leaving Newton on the doorstep.

“Mrs Wigburg is the housekeeper,” says Hermann. “She’s lived here longer than me. The stones believe she owns them, and I am not about to argue. Tell your driver to go around to the stable. There is no sense in leaving a horse out in this weather.”

“You keep horses? And regular humans in the house? More to the point,” he rushes on, “they know about you?”

“Mrs Wigburg owes her life to one of my brothers.”

“Ooh, family,” says Newton. He frowns. “Are they here?”

Hermann decides that the question is stupid and not worth his answering. “The stables are past those fir trees,” he calls to Newton’s driver. “Lanzo will take care of you.” Newton’s driver nods and climbs up into his seat, leaving Newton to manhandle the suitcase of books.

Hermann does not take Newton upstairs, though the staircases are impressive features that require a room all to themselves. Instead he leads Newton past them and down a hallway to where there is a large room with a bright fire in one corner. Newton flinches at it, and when he sees Hermann’s smirk he wishes he had not.

“How’ve you been?” asks Newton, struggling a little with the suitcase, but once it is up on the short table between chairs he flops down into one and tosses his hat onto the table.

Hermann looks infuriated at the intrusion but uncertain how to get rid of him now that he’s here.

“Well enough, prior to your visit.”

“Haven’t seen you for a century!”

Hermann sniffs, hands folded over the end of his elegant gold-headed cane, weight carefully on one leg and a haughty expression on his face. “I assure you, my life has been better for it.”

They’ve both been vampires for several hundred years, now. They’re old to some and children to others, but vampires have never been keen procreators and either way there aren’t many of them. It’s easy to find a place in the world free of vampires, and it’s obvious to Hermann that Newton travelled for some time to get here.

He’s entirely unsure how to feel about that. Friends travel to visit friends, obnoxious strangers arrive unannounced, but Newton brought a suitcase of books and despite himself Hermann is itching to go through the collection.

“Your hair looks shocking,” says Newton, because there’s a silence and the best way to break it is with insults.

“Yours looks preposterous,” Hermann retorts. “Do you sleep upside down, so that gravity makes it stick that way?”

“If only you could see yourself,” sneers Newton. “You’d have a heart attack.” He frowns at Hermann. “Oh, do quit hovering and sit down already.”

“You’d invite me to sit in my own house?”

“Not your house,” says Newton, pointedly. Hermann fidgets, but he would like to sit down, so he does, hurumphing at Newton as he does so. He debates not reaching for the suitcase. He doesn’t want to appear to want, but he does, and Newton’s watching him delightedly.

He growls and leans back in his seat.

“Should I call for tea?” he asks.

“Why not,” Newton grins, taunting him, and this is so bloody like him, Hermann thinks. He calls for tea and a maid brings it, complete with a tray with tiny cakes and a few sweet biscuits. Newton chuckles at the incongruity of cultures, especially given the tea is jasmine and very obviously not local.

Hermann does not have friends and he does not know how to associate with people, which makes him feel awfully awkward and very self-aware, while Newton does not have friends and doesn’t really care that he does not know how to conduct himself in social situations. He’s mad at himself for asking Mrs Wigburg to invite Newton in.

“Your brother’s castle, then?”

“The family estate,” says Hermann. “Do you have one of those?”

“My mother is more of a wanderer. I believe I have an aunt of kinds who owns land in India.”

Hermann loves India, but will not admit that, so he sniffs and drinks his tea.

“It’s a nice place,” Newton concedes. “I was in Paris a couple decades ago for the opening of the Palais-Cardinal. It’s quite beautiful, the architecture is, of course, far more modern than this,” he looks around at the decor, and Hermann glares.

“Why have you come?” he snaps.

“I said, to say goodbye. I am going to the Americas and might not return for some time. Sea voyages are not my forte.”

“You’ll die,” says Hermann. “And good riddance,” he adds, an afterthought that is half-muffled by his lip against the edge of his teacup.

“What is your problem with me?” yells Newton.

“I simply don’t see why you’d care to go across the ocean to unexplored lands.”

“They are explored,” says Newton, who is not a product of his time because his time was over six hundred years ago and he’s travelled enough to be rid of most commonly held human ideas. “There’s people living there.”

“Either way,” says Hermann, “leave it to them. You have easy access to Asia and Africa. Do you plan on visiting that place Willem found, too?”

“Perhaps,” says Newton staunchly, though he has no idea who Willem is or what land he found.

“For someone as old as you are you seem awfully eager to throw your life away. Sea voyages are dangerous to people such as us.”

“I wasn’t aware you cared,” Newton fires back.

Hermann freezes. “I don’t,” he blurts. “Do what you like. You brought me books, now leave. Drown in a storm, or hit an iceberg.”

“I came here because I thought you were my friend. I have not even gone to see my mother yet,” he says. He throws his arm wide, body twisting with the movement and tea spilling over the edge of his cup. “I brought you books, I came here.”

“We are not friends,” says Hermann. “You are a vampire, and I do not associate with my own kind beyond what I must with my family.” He sets his tea down, carefully, other hand reaching for his can.

“You’re too good for me, is that it? Why? Because I associate with humans?” Newton snorts, standing. He's shaking a little, enraged and scarcely thinking out the words he’s throwing from his mouth. “I talk to them and befriend them, and think that eating them is unnecessary? You are so pretentious, and so fucking alone. Who else is going to call you their friend, if I don’t?”

Hermann’s also standing up, hand tight on the head of his cane and he gasps in a tight breath at Newton’s words, because they’re accurate. He doesn’t have friends, he has servants and he has family that he almost despises, and his life is a slow, lonely orbit that occasionally comes close to Newton’s trajectory. He doesn’t have friends, he only has Newton.

“You’re not my friend,” he repeats, loudly, yelling. “You have eternity ahead and you spend your time dithering with humans.”

“Humans like Isaac?” asks Newton, picking a book at random and waving it in Hermann’s face. “He’s far more intelligent than you’ll ever be.”

That is more than Hermann can bear. “Get out. Get out of my house!” he yells.

“No!” Newton shouts back. “You can’t just order me out because I hurt your feelings.”

Hermann reaches for the closest thing that isn’t his cane. There’s a wooden chair with a faded cushion seat next to his couch, on which Hermann sometimes rests his leg. He grabs it. “Get out of my house.”

Newton laughs at him. It’s an absurd picture, Hermann in old-fashioned black clothes that cover him from his jaw down, one hand on his cane and the other gripping the back of a chair. He looks so angry in that moment that Newton finds it hilarious, and pathetic, and he wants to punch Hermann to get him to explain why, why? They are friends. They have to be.

Hermann was there when Newton was in a fight in Barcelona and they’ve lent each other books and passed each other in clubhouses. The world is so big but they keep running into each other, and if nothing else it’s clear that the universe believes that they are friends.

The laughter sends Hermann over the edge. “Get out!” he yells again, and he throws the chair. It’s not a strong throw, although he is a vampire, but it lands on the rug half a meter from Newton with a loud crash, without breaking. Automatically Newton throws the only thing in his hand, which is one of his books. It hits the stone and skids, pages fluttering, and they both stare at it.

“Leave my house,” says Hermann. His fangs have not extended but his lips are parted and he’s panting, and it’s clear that at any moment this fight could devolve into something more true to their species.

Newton has never had that kind of fight. He has tended to vampires who have, though, and the results are horrific. Vampires are gentle with few people, let alone their own kind.

Newton leaves.

 

 

 

 

Newton reads the email four times and then goes to have a shower. Warmer and with one of Hermann’s scarves on he goes back to his computer to read it again.

The email is very clearly addressed to Newton Geiszler.

Hermann Gottlieb is not mentioned, not even in passing.

Newton goes to Hermann’s computer, guesses the password on the second try, and checks his email.

There’s a few new ones, but none like Newton’s.

He’s being transferred, and he’s being transferred alone.

Newton gives up, and goes to bed.

 

 

 

 

“They can’t,” says Hermann the next morning, when Newton tells him. “I refuse to let them. I will go discuss this with the Marshall directly!” And he does, even though JAX-I is temperamentally whirring and leaving it for even a minute will probably result in a shut-down, reboot and consequent loss of all data.

Pentecost is stern, and busy, and they have interrupted his 9 o’clock for this.

“There is nothing I can do, gentleman. You have sold yourself to the PPDC and you will do as we say. Sydney has need of a biologist. Doctor Geiszler is that biologist. My power in this situation is limited.”

“How long for?” asks Newton. The email didn’t say, only said that he was expected in Sydney before March 12. It’s the 8th now.

“Until they no longer need you,” says Pentecost.

Newton looks at Hermann, horrified, terrified.

“Sir,” says Hermann.

“Speak to Mr Ledman to arrange transportation that suits your needs.” He takes a moment of pity on them. “I understand they only want you for a week or two. This should not be cause for stress.”

“Yes, sir,” says Hermann, as always far faster and far more resolute in his respect for the man. Newton scarcely so much as nods before walking out.

 

 

His journey is arranged for night, and Newton packs blood in little thermoses and Hermann watches him from the other side of the room and says nothing.

It’s only a few weeks, after all. They can call, and Skype, and they have been apart for most of their lives. Really, really, if Hermann’s been alive since before the Eleventh Century, that’s fifty-two weeks in a year, that’s fifty-three thousand two-hundred and forty-eight weeks. That’s not even true, that’s not counting the years before 1000, but all in all three weeks is nothing to the time they have spent apart before.

Hermann calculates the weeks he’s been alive and determines the percentage that this transfer will mean that he will be without Newton. The number is five to the power of ten to the negative five, plus some change. Nothing worth mentioning.

It’s only a few weeks.

Newton is leaving all his books behind, most of his clothes, most of his things. He has his laptop and his eReader, his leather jacket and a collection of shirts and a spare pair of jeans.

“Be back before you know it,” he smiles as the helicopter whirrs to life. The smile cracks immediately it’s formed.

“Don’t irritate anyone too badly,” says Hermann.

They, both of them, should be more used to goodbyes.

Newton claps Hermann on the arm, and kisses him politely, a kiss meant for a public area and a farewell for only a short time. He gets into the helicopter and waves, and Hermann puts both his hands on top of his cane and cannot catch the words that Newton shouts out at him.

The helicopter disappears up into the night, and Hermann goes back inside.

The lab is very empty without Newton.

He cannot even turn up the heat, else the kaiju left behind will rot.

Hermann puts on some music and hits JAX-I a few times. The machine starts to life immediately, and Hermann glares at it suspiciously.

“Do you just not like him?” he asks it. The screen flickers on and the cursor starts blinking at him. Hermann looks over at Newton’s empty half. “Stay on,” he tells the machine. “I’m going to get some blood.”

The machine is still on when he gets back, patiently waiting, and he narrows his eyes at it suspiciously. At least, he supposes, he’ll be able to get some work done this way.

Without Newton.

 

 

 

 

Sydney is absolutely different to Hong Kong. Hong Kong marches resolutely onwards into the end of the world, but Sydney’s been cut in half. Only a few hours away by plane there’s New Zealand crushed into nothing by the claws of kaiju. The Wall is a scar through the city, and even though the Shatterdome is cleaner, nicer, the lights all working and the walls unmarked by rust, there is an air to Sydney.

It feels like a city that’s given up hope.

There’s a few people here and Newton doesn’t really learn their names, only knows who they are by where they sit in the lab. If nothing else it’s strange to have actual walls between his specimen dissections and the other people, and it’s strange to have a small horde – two people, but after Hermann, even one would feel like a horde – hanging on his every word. Sometimes they take notes while he talks.

He has to be awake during the day.

This is a problem.

He has to teach the other scientists so he has to be awake during the day, and he has to keep his blood secret and hidden, and he has to stay calm and sane and he has to not miss Hermann quite as much as he is.

 

 

He opens up Skype two hours into his second day, while one of his lackeys is out on a coffee run and the other is searching for more slide covers.

“Herms my man!” he yells when Hermann answers the call, and Hermann flinches back and glares. Immediately there’s a thud and a clunk from behind Hermann and he turns.

“Fantastic,” he growls. “That’s been working perfectly since you left. And don’t call me that.” He peers at the screen. “I gather you have company.”

“Yeah, that’s,” he frowns at the lab-coated woman. “Amelia?” The woman doesn’t turn around, and Newton shrugs. “Did you say JAX-I’s been working perfectly?”

“I turned her on only minutes after you left. You call, and she breaks.”

“She? Oh, Herm, you miss me that much?” He catches a glimpse of something on the table behind Hermann. “Are you reading my comics?”

Hermann turns, sees what he’s seeing, and flushes prettily. “ _Saga_. It’s rather good.”

“You really do miss me.”

“Is there a purpose for your call, or did you only want to ruin my equations?”

“Jenny in maths wants to holler at you. One moment.” Newton launches himself up and returns a few moments later with a little red-haired girl in big horn-rimmed glasses that seem to take up half her face. She blinks at Hermann, who is wearing glasses that nearly match.

“Hermann, Jenny. Jenny, this is Doctor Gottlieb. Play nice,” he adds to Hermann, who narrows his eyes at him. Just then possibly-Amelia calls for Newton’s help, so Newton spins away in his chair, rolling until he hits the bench on the far side of the lab with a loud crunch.

“I’m alright!” he calls. “I’m all good.”

“As though we cared,” withers Hermann. “Please do try to keep it down.”

Hermann’s attitude towards Newton is as dryly scathing as ever and Newton is as buoyantly uncaring as ever, and his new Sydney team don’t see them as anything more than irritants in each other’s life.

(Jenny thinks Hermann is simply marvellous, but _she_ insists on tea with sugar and milk, so obviously her opinions do not count. Newton realises mid-thought that it’s Hermann’s fault that Newton doesn’t take his tea the same way anymore, and in any case, his opinion regarding Hermann was shot to hell quite some time ago.)

He calls Hermann once or twice a week, and between that they email, and or text, and Newton misses him but refuses to admit that he’s missing him.

It’s in the middle of one of these calls that Newton is invited out. Hermann’s in the background drinking his first coffee at the day at 7pm, and around Newton the lab is packing up.

Amelia is talking to Olinda, and then Newton is called into play.

“You doin’ anything Friday, Newt?”

“Nothing in the diary,” he says. Hermann’s eyes flick over the camera and then away, hands busy with something. Probably arranging his pens in perfect order before beginning on the day, thinks Newton with a sneer.

God, he misses him.

“Cool. Bunch of us are going out.” Newton’s focusing on Hermann, only half-listening. “Wanna come?”

“Sure,” says Newton.

“You’ll get a girl easy,” continues Amelia. “With that ink.”

Hermann’s eyes flick back to the screen, and then he coughs.

“I really must be going.” His hand reaches up, obscuring his face, and the camera goes black.

Newton frowns at the screen before closing the window and turning to Amelia.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

 

 

Hermann sends him an email that night, and Newton gets it while he’s lying in bed telling himself that he really does need to sleep, he needs to be up early in the morning and he needs to keep to actual human times and – oh blast, he’ll check his emails and maybe play a bit more of Candy Crush and then he’ll be tired.

The email is a veritable essay, a detailed description of Hermann’s day from start to finish coupled with responses to all of Newton’s one-liners, and in the middle there is a short paragraph.

_I have spoken to the Marshall and he admits that he is not certain if your Sydney assignment will be complete in his promised “few weeks”. With that in mind, and given that you are being invited out socially, I think I should reiterate the allowances I have alluded to prior. Given your libido is far higher than mine ever has been I think it unkind of me to lay claim to you entirely and refuse you the freedom to find what pleasures you desire._

And then, without any further discussion, Hermann continues on to mention that JAX-I is still working perfectly, and J-Tech has proclaimed that it will acquisition some of Newton’s space during his absence.

Newton laughs at that, because J-Tech has no idea what it’s getting itself in for by voluntarily sharing space with Hermann.

He emails back immediately, though. _You don’t have to._

Newton doesn’t count the days, he doesn’t mark how often they have sex and hold it against Hermann. But he does know, if he thinks about it, that it’s been three weeks two days since Hermann was inside of him, and there’s only so much masturbating he can do.

Breaking his habit, Hermann responds quickly and simply, without a signature: _I know. Have fun._

 

Newton goes out on Friday night to a pub that looks worse for wear and is apparently frequented nearly only by PPDC workers. His tattoos get stares, and he stares back and drinks his beer.

His scientists talk. There’s gossip about people he doesn’t know and circumstances he is not privy to, and there’s a woman. She’s taller than him (of course) with green hair and she touches the edges of his tattoos on the back of his hand and smiles at him.

“Fancy another drink?” she asks.

He says yes, because his is empty and she is blocking his way out of the booth. Across the room he sees Chuck, who is scowling, at him or at the world at large, so Newton says yes.

The world might end.

He might as well have another drink. (He’s still not very good at picking up on when people want him.)

The woman returns with cider and he doesn’t like cider, has never liked cider, but he drinks it. She sits close to him, and Chuck is across the room almost daring him on.

Hermann said yes, and it has been nearly a month.

 

 

 

“Hello,” says Hermann, leaning away from the computer. He has chalk-dust on his lower lip, but he answered the call so he’s probably not in the middle of something too important. Newton can see his eyes glance down the screen to the clock, quickly adding two digits and back his eyes come to meet Newton’s across the camera. “You’re back early.”

“Yeah,” says Newton.

“I thought I would not hear from you again until at least tomorrow.”

“I think you’ve broken me.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve never done monogamy. I’ve never been in a relationship with one of us for to bother.”

“You,” Hermann searches for the word. “Struck out.” It sounds awful coming from his lips, and Newton huffs a laugh.

“Nah. Kinda? I said no. I think she thinks I’m gay or cheating on my boyfriend, or something.” Newton shakes his head and laughs. “And I really did want to sleep with Tendo. First time I saw him in 2017. That was my thought. Gonna sleep with this guy. Then you say I can and I couldn’t.” He glowers at Hermann, who frowns.

“I do hope that you are not thinking of blaming this on me. Your emotional hang-ups are not my issue, and I refuse to be involved in any kind of sexual activity that I am not completely interested in.”

Newton stares. “No! Dude! Do what you like. This is me. It’s cool. I’ve just... This is a new problem for me. I’ll figure it out.”

“Good.”

“But do you uh,” Newton licks his lips and leans forward a little, and Hermann notices that even if Newton does not realise what he is doing. He never seems to know what his body is doing, limbs falling where they land with no concern. He is sprawling, even now, leaning back in his chair with one boot on the desk. “You miss me, right? I mean... Alone. In bed.” He’s smirking, and it’s a little awkward and a little bashful, but it’s still Newton.

Hermann glances to the side, although he is alone, a faint blush marring his pale cheeks. “I am not going to discuss that.”

“Aw,” says Newton, but he doesn’t push. “I might try to get some work done.” He spins in his chair and Hermann can see him grab his iPod. “You’d like these people. Tazza ruined the speakers so they don’t go above twenty.”

“Tazza? With a name like that I am conflicted,” says Hermann.

“And it’s warm here,” says Newton. “It’s awesome.”

 

 

 

 

Hermann is more controlled in his moods than Newton. Newton wakes and goes with the flow, while Hermann dislikes wasting time and bad days are not things that he likes happening to him. He turns them off. Ignores the emotions until they go away, and does his best to be productive in the meantime.

He’s never had a diagnosis for his leg. He doesn’t see much point for it: any surgery he has now would “heal” back to the previous state of being. His lower joints don’t work. The right side is worse than the left, and some days his right knee locks up completely and his hip can scarcely take weight, but on the whole his gait is a series of strange movements that propel him eventually in some kind of forward direction.

He needs his cane always, and on better days he can switch hands from right to left without concern. Better days happen when it’s warmer, immediately after feeding, or after ingesting Newton’s blood (and no, that’s not the reason he does it, he does it because Newton asks and because Hermann is absolutely capable of saying no, he just does not want to. He does not examine his feeding from Newton any more extensively than that, afraid of what he might find.)

But today is a very bad day.

Newton has been gone for over a month (thirty-four days, but he’s not counting, he just happened to notice the date and his mind is incapable of not doing the mathematics on every set of digits he comes across. He always gets the best deal in the supermarket.)

Newton has been gone for over a month and Hermann misses him. The lab is _empty_. It is _quiet_. There are no biohazards _anywhere_. Not even in the kitchen, because Hermann’s taken to actually washing his dishes on a frequent basis. The cups are clean and there’s no blood stains.

He’s been wearing the same sweater vest for a week because he cannot bring himself to be bothered going through his wardrobe and changing, even if wearing a new one would take only as much effort as not picking up the vest from where he tossed it the night before. No one has noticed. Newton noticed if he wore the same _watch_ two days in a row (another frivolity borne from a love of mechanics and orderly things; clocks are Hermann’s weakness and he is never without.)

It is a bad day for, although he has blood and he has warmth, his leg is aching so much he is wondering, again, if perhaps he should just say buggrit and get himself a wheelchair.

The numbers are his sole salvation but they are not doing what he needs them to do. He needs another event and he does not want another event, but he requires the data.

He pulls up a few files from LOCCENT and J-Tech and runs over the code, but the numbers swim together and his mind is lost again to the calculations he has scribbled behind him.

He cannot focus. He checks the time, knowing already that Newton will not be awake. He disapproves of what the humans have done to Newton’s sleeping patterns, stealing him away from Hermann.

Taking him to Sydney.

He gets up from his chair – he does not have wheels on his chairs, nor do they spin, and limps very painfully over to a row of books. He does not take his cane with him, because it is only a very few steps, but when he has run his eye along the titles and found that the desired volume is not there he growls and turns too sharply. His hip grinds and clicks together, the joint locking and he lets out a sharp noise of pain.

He stumbles, catches himself on the desk.

His knee is locked up, too, the patellar dragging poorly across the surface and he clutches at the desk. The pain is excruciating. The only way to make it go away is to kick out his leg with the other, holding onto a surface to keep himself upright, and to make himself move so that it unlocks.

He shifts to do just that, and his other leg gives out.

He is standing holding himself up only with his arms, and he tries to move, he tries to shift his weight and get at least one leg working enough that he can maybe reach his cane, and as he moves he falls. He grabs desperately at the desk. Instead his hands close over a stack of books. They crash down with him, one landing so heavily on his thigh he knows there’s blood blossoming out of vessels into the space beneath his skin.

He doesn’t care.

The hard metal ground hurts and he lets it, lets the pain sweep through him. His hip is still locked up and he can feel his kneecap out of place, crushing on a nerve and probably a blood vessel, but he does not care.

He sits on the floor, the coldness seeping through his clothes to freeze his arse, and he stares up and the blackboard and, to his absolute horror, he begins to cry.

He decides, sitting there on the floor, that he is giving up. Angry at this, and angry at himself, he picks up one of the books and throws it. It lands pages down splayed out on the metal and he feels immediately guilty for damaging it.

After a while he gets up. He has to. He cannot stay on the floor for the rest of forever. He gets up and with achingly slow steps gets his cane, and then picks the books from the floor and stacks them neatly.

He looks at the blackboard. The scribbles are stupid, meaningless. They are garbled jumble and in a fit of fury he scrubs the board clean. He gets a cloth filled with water and cleans them again, washes the chalk dust from the wood and leaves the boards to dry.

With a mug of blood and a mug of hot chocolate he goes to bed. It’s easier when he’s lying down, and the chairs in his lab are grossly uncomfortable even at the best of times. He’s got his tablet propped on his lap and he’s debating between giving up on today as a productive day and reading a novel instead of working when Newton calls.

Hermann debates not answering him. He can feel the red around his eyes from crying. He knows he looks like a wreck. He’s in bed at this time of day, and he does not want to answer.

He does anyway.

“Hey!” says Newton, and then, immediately, “Babe. Herms. What’s wrong?”

Hermann looks away at the dark corner of his room, the clutter of clothing and stack of things on his desk. “My leg hurts,” he says.

He is tired of this. His body keeps warring against him, and there is no fix for it. Any drugs he takes are not enough and the blood warms him only for a few hours. He is always, eternally, in pain.

Realising that his statement was not enough he corrects himself. “My entire lower body hurts. My arms feel as though they are on fire. I cannot hold the cane.” Even as he says that he moves one hand to the other, the tablet slipping on the sheets so that Newton’s view of him tilts, and he rubs the wrist of his right hand. The motion does not soothe the joint. “I cannot find the right numbers,” he admits, and that is the hardest of all to say so he says it quietly, not looking at Newton.

Numbers do not lie, but truths are hard to find.

“Hermann,” says Newton, and stops. He does not know what to say and Hermann gives a sardonic little smile. There is nothing to be said.

“I’m coming home.”

That makes Hermann look up.

“Here, you mean? You’re coming back here?”

“Of course,” says Newton.

“When did you get your transfer?”

“I’ll ask for it. I’ll tell them. I have to be there.”

Oh, Hermann realises. This is not an order. This is simply Newton being Newton.

“What will you do?” he snaps. “Carry me about? Fetch my things for me?”

“I could help. We always work better together.”

Hermann’s jaw clenches. It has been a month and it is not working, but it has been a month and he refuses to lean on another person. Another vampire. He forgets the last four years and remembers only the centuries before.

“No,” he says. “You will not transfer. You will remain there, where they need you.”

“You need me.”

Hermann glares through the screen at Newton. “You cannot fix this,” he snaps. “This is permanent, you can do nothing.”

And then, having nothing more to say and irritated by Newton’s stupid sad face and the lick of ink poking from his collar he pushes the tablet away. Then he fumbles with the lock button, and manages to end the call. A few moments later it buzzes with a message, which he looks at despite himself.

_Have a bath, it always helps. Love you._

Hermann knows baths help, he doesn’t need Newton to tell him that. _He’s_ been the one living with this condition for years, not Newton. Petulantly he thinks of ignoring the message, but his legs ache and the heat would ease the pain. Telling himself he would have done it anyway he swallows his pride and goes to have a bath.

 

 

 

 

April slides into May and congeals into June without any concern for the people living through the rolling phases of the moon or the shifts of the seasons.

Hermann takes to smoking on the roof with Ling from the kitchen. She talks about food and catering to too many people with too many religions and he just watches the smoke curl away into the night air. He watches the moon and the stars and he thinks about other worlds and wonder if there are any that are warm and dark.

He remembers Sweden.

Every vampire has tried on Sweden for size, or some other northern region with the polar night. He knows that Newton was there more than once, and at least twice during the 1400s.

Hermann was there in the early 1800s, and it had not been pleasant. It had been cold. The stars had been horrid, like crisp emotionless things staring down at his plight uncaringly. It may have been that his trip to Sweden (specifically, to Kiruna) coincided too closely with one of his several forays into religion. He had been born into Germanic Paganism, developed into Nordic Paganism, decided that vampires and religion do not mix, was introduced to Islam, tried to talk himself into believing the Quran, rebelled against the very concept of Catholicism, and then, in Sweden, found the Sami style of shamanism.

It was not the first time he had tried to believe he has a soul, but it was the first time anyone else told him it was true.

Rocks have souls. Why not vampires? Immortality should be no rule against an eternal life in some other realm.

He lived in Kiruana until he was unable, until he had to flee the midnight sun, and then he returned the next year. And the next. Coldness mattered less when a soul and darkness was to be had.

Now, in the relative warmth of Hong Kong, though Hermann cannot remember ever being truly warm, not even with his coat fit for sub-zero temperatures and his multiple layers beneath, not even with smoke curdling in his mouth against the metallic aftertaste of body-temperature blood.

He listens to Ling complain about food and does not point out that she is lucky. Hong Kong is outside of rationing and at least she has the ability to cater to different diets. He received an email from his brother – one of his brothers, he has two that he has spoken with recently enough to know what names they are currently answering to, and he has multiple more than he has no desire to ever see.

Lars was not so much creating a family as building an army, forgetting that vampires socialise poorly. Hermann holds grudges well and for centuries. Occasionally he is asked to participate more actively in family matters, but he reminds Lars rather pointedly that he has refused to speak with Abdul since 1592 and beyond Bastien, Abdul is his closest friend in the family.

Karla does not count.

Karla is not a friend, Karla is a thorn in his side and even with Ling beside him and the stars above and Karla probably in France or Spain or someplace living it up despite it being the end of the world, the mere memory of Karla tightens his chest and he wheezes out a breath of smoke.

“Alright, there?” asks Ling, breaking off her tirade to look up at him.

“Remembering,” he says. She looks side-long at him. “Family,” he explains.

“Ah,” Ling chuckles. “Family bring out the worst in us. Friends are better.” She grins up at him. “Friends you can choose.”

Hermann remembers Karla, remembers her stalking into his library and taking two of his books and throwing them into the fire.

It had been the days before the printing press when such things were still laboriously copied by hand and those volumes had been rare. She is petulant and irritating and absolutely uncaring for anyone else. He wonders that she did not rampage through the PPDC merely to irritate him. In the olden days she would have. She had, in fact. She had come to a small town where he had been living and left bodies bloodless in the sand of the streets.

He does not like vampires but primarily he does not like Karla.

She is not the worst of the siblings that Lars has produced for him, but she is the one who insists on reappearing in his life century after century.

 

 

Newton is working between kaiju entrails and ecologists, explaining how better to combat the creatures and how best to combat the mess their waste has dredged up onto the shore. He’s asked to the Gold Coast, and to the Great Barrier Reef, but he refuses and refuses, until he’s certain the people who ask him despise him for it. He would care, but he’s had the same argument so many times. He cannot see the sun. Instead he investigates photographs and videos and examines cells and sheets data.

July begins with Hermann sitting on his bed with his legs stretched out – never cross-legged, unable to bend that way – thinking how inconvenient it is that the one time in his life that he has some kind of steady relationship and the man he wants is on the other side of the equator. But he ignores the pulsing of his groin in favour of maths, and then maths in favour of a card game with Tendo and some other humans. Without Newton to distract him he counts cards without particularly intending to, and loses on purpose only when he realises what he’s done.

July ends with Hermann picking up the phone and recoiling sharply when Newton screams down it much the same as he did in 1977. It’s a Wednesday again, so perhaps that’s Newton’s Wednesday deal: call Hermann from the other side of the world. Yell at him.

“I got an eyeball!”

“Congratulations,” says Hermann, from a distance.

“Dude, I got an eyeball. A whole eyeball. You won’t believe this. They can’t see colour.”

“Rubbish,” says Hermann, immediately. “They are complicated enough to have developed the processes to detect variations in wavelength.”

“Dude, protists have photoreceptors. It ain’t nothin’ special. Box jellyfish can detect colour. It only takes three hundred and sixty four thousand years to evolve an eye.”

“Yet they have not evolved colour detection.”

“Yeah, but that means that their ability to sense variation in light must be insane, and I’m still betting on some kind of infrared sensation because dude -” Hermann cuts him off.

“As exciting as I find kaiju biology to be, I am busy.”

“Pft. You’re always busy.”

“Yes. It is the end of the world, or so they say.”

“Pity,” says Newton. “Because I was going to say that I’m wearing nothing at all.”

Hermann’s jaw clicks shut. He grinds his teeth. “You thought to begin a conversation about kaiju and then turn it into phone sex?” he asks, blunt as ever.

“Well...” Newton draws it out.

Hermann stares at the ceiling. “You know I am not comfortable with this sort of thing.” It’s too much of a display, and his abilities are more in doing than describing. He knows what he likes. It takes preparation to verbalise it.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s cool,” Newton says. The disappointment is obvious in his voice, but he swallows it down, but not far enough. It bubbles up again. “Is this what it’s gonna be? Forever? You turning me down?”

“I do not always refuse you,” growls Hermann. He eyes JAX-I. The machine plays up when Newton calls, though it is still humming along nicely now. Another calculation. Another prediction that might aid in this battle against the unknown.

“Yeah, but, like, at least 90% of the time...”

“I might as well as well argue that 90% of the time you are propositioning an unwilling man.” The percentage is wrong, but he cannot be bothered with such a pedantic argument. JAX-I buzzes, and he strikes the side of the machine with his cane.

“Come on, dude,” Newton whines. “You gotta work with me here, man.”

“No, in fact, I do not. You knew this before this began.”

“This began with extremely eager sex,” Newton argues back.

“And that will occur again.” Hermann is tired of this. This is why he prefers to keep his relationships short, so that the delight in a new body does not fade and his true nature is not revealed. “In the meantime you will not attempt to guilt me into something I do not desire. Now, if that is all.” He hangs up, and glares at the phone.

Wednesdays are terrible days, he decides.

JAX-I purrs at him.

 

 

August begins with Newton nearly sober licking a line down a woman’s throat. The woman is eager, her hands sliding up under Newton’s shirt and trying to slide down his pants – and yeah, he thinks, good luck with that, but he’s distracted by the pulse of her throat and the taste of her sweat. He’s distracted by thinking that this is not Hermann. And good, he thinks. Good, because Hermann would turn him down, tell him he’s not in the mood and that Newton is being too demanding.

Newton wants to be okay with it. God, he wants to be okay with it – and now the woman has figured out how skin-tight his pants are and has begun on the button at the front. He smiles against her neck and nuzzles at the flickering skin, blood only a few layers beneath. He loves Hermann, he does, he does, but he loves sex.

The balance is off. That’s what it is.

He and Hermann, they are mismatched weights on the end of a see-saw, and they will never equalise. Newton’s getting off. This, now. He kisses the woman’s earlobe and she leans in so he uses his teeth and oh, oh she _likes_ that. This is Newton getting off the see-saw and finding something that matches.

And then suddenly he freezes.

Really? Really really? He wants to get off the see-saw? He wants to leave Hermann?

It’s been eight hundred years and he’s getting off now?

Because, what? Because he wants his dick sucked a little more often? What a pathetic reason. God _damn_ he’s an asshole.

He takes a step back from the woman, only noticing then that her hand was about to reach down his pants. He could still save this. Tell her they should really be getting back to his place, or hers, or some place that isn’t this alley.

He looks at her.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Sorry,” he says. He doesn’t bother with an explanation. He just turns and leaves, doing up his pants as he goes.

He manages to get his iPhone out of his pocket and works around the crack on the screen to call Hermann.

“This better be bloody important,” is the answer. “I’m playing Monopoly.”

“Is Tendo winning?” Tendo always wins. The man is a menace. Newton doesn’t care about the answer, though, and continues on quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m such an asshole, and I’m sorry I keep asking for stuff you don’t want.” He hasn’t even left the alleyway yet, and the woman is still there. He can hear her. Her pulse is fast and she is irritated at him. He turns the corner, uncaring. The club is still there. She’ll find someone else easily enough, he’s sure. "Will you forgive me?"

“...I accept, but I require a change in behaviour, also.”

“Yes!” says Newton. “Yes. Of course. We cool?”

“Yes,” says Hermann. “We’re... cool.”

Newton grins at the Sydney street. “Beat Tendo’s ass for me, babe.”

“Unlikely, but I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Willem Janszoon is maybe the first European to see Australia. What a claim to fame. I mean, I don't know much about ships but probably there was a sailor who saw it first? but Willem was captain of the Duyfken so he gets the glory.
> 
> There is maybe one more chapter to this story.


	9. Chapter 9

In September Tendo walks into the lab and falls down onto the couch. It’s just gone eleven at night and Hermann is in the middle of something, so he doesn’t look up at the intrusion; it’s not uncommon for people to walk in to drop off some folders, but when the door doesn’t reopen to let the visitor out he goes to investigate.

“Alison’s pregnant,” says Tendo, voice muffled by the pillows.

“Congratulations,” Hermann replies.

“No!” says Tendo, rolling over and staring up at him. “No congratulations. This is the worst.”

“I presume you planned this,” Hermann says carefully.

“Duh. Couldn’t exactly,” he makes a vague gesture at himself. “Not the point. The point is, this is not me. I don’t do this. Married? A kid? I do dates with women and their boyfriends. Non-monogamy and lots of casual sex. I don’t do this,” he repeats, scrubbing his hands down his face. “What am I meant to do?”

Hermann is the least qualified person in the entire Shatterdome to talk about relationships. He hasn’t spoken to Newton in nearly a week, he realises with a slight pang of guilt. It’s not out of any malice, just, they’re both busy and conversation is difficult with all the distractions the world is throwing at them.

“Read baby books?” asks Hermann. This being the extent of his knowledge of human children he offers Tendo a cup of tea, which the man takes even though it’s not coffee.

“How are you and Newt coping?” asks Tendo, a while later.

“Managing,” says Hermann. He thinks Tendo means in relation to Tendo’s previous comments about how he does relationships, and Hermann searches for a comment to match. “It’s difficult, the balance between myself and him. He’s not the most… committed person.”

“You’ve got an open thing going on, while he’s down there?” asks Tendo, eyebrows up in surprise.

“No. Well,” he is uncomfortable discussing this. “I offered,” he admits.

“More committed than you thought,” suggests Tendo.

Hermann shrugs, certain that eventually it will change. They have eternity, and as much as he wants he cannot trust that Newton’s attention will remain on him for that long. He feels a pang in his chest at the thought of continuing with Newton with him.

He limps across the room and takes his cane from where it is hanging on the edge of the chalkboard. He looks up as his numbers, and glances back at Tendo.

“Come here,” he says. “I need you to check this for me.”

 

 

 

The Lima Shatterdome is decommissioned October 18, not even a week after Anchorage. Later that same month, Tokyo is sold to a private buyer.

There’s an influx of new workers, as many as Pentecost can afford. The sales don’t do much. They’re trying to rebuild Gipsy Danger and the metal costs so much. It’s cheaper and easier to melt it down into the Wall.

Hermann hasn’t spoken to his Father since that time he came to Hong Kong. During October he’s tempted to ring him up and yell at him, but that would achieve nothing.

The man continues to build his Wall.

Hermann has his numbers.

And, too far away, Newton’s worriedly watching the centrifuge, afraid that it will leap off the bench.

 

 

Newton is alone in the lab while the others have gone off to dinner. The music is loud but he can still hear everything: the filter in the aquarium meant to test Kaiju Blue in simulated aquatic environment but now a happy home to a collection of corral fish; the soft buzz of the autoclave; the whine of the printer; the soft _schick_ of the door sliding open.

“Hey, man,” says Newton, loud above the music, “pass me that, would you?” He waves his hand indistinctly at the bench behind him, not lifting his head from the microscope. One visitor is giggling at something the other said, but eventually the little tool gets put into Newton’s outstretched hand.

“What’s up?” asks Olinda.

“IPod broke,” says Newton. “Fixing it.” He’s a little cold and a little hungry. Sydney it might be, but the lab is cold for samples and Newton’s gone all Hermann and he’s wearing an undershirt.

He reaches for his cup of coffee and finds it empty, and his hand is shaking a little. Whatever. Whatever, it’s Sydney, it’s 2024, his iPod is broken and the end of the world is nigh.

Well and truly fucking nigh.

He finishes with the delicate machinery inside the iPod and pulls it out from under the microscope to wrangle the cover back on. It doesn’t click quite shut, so he grabs some tape.

“There,” he grins. “Done!” He looks up at Olinda and her friend, and stops shorts.

“You!” he cries. He knows the woman but he doesn’t know her name. “Fuck.” He stands up and pulls her immediately into a hug.

“You know Marianne?” asks Olinda, watching Newton fold comfortably into her arms.

“Hell yeah. We go way back.” He pulls back a little, and says softly, “Did you hear about Mum?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” says Marianne. They both wince. Marianne is Newton’s Great Aunt, sort of. His Mother’s Mother’s Sister, but it’s all vampiric so the only blood they share has long since been digested. She’s a lot older than Newton. That’s the way of things, these days. Either they’re old and wise or young and idiotic.

Most humans who know Newton would be aghast to realise he’s part of the “old and wise”.

But he is. He’s a thousand years old.

“I didn’t know you were here,” says Marianne. “I’m not surprised.” Her accent is weird. She’s from Chile, or what is Chile, but she’s lived in so many places since and adopted so many personas that it’s difficult to distinguish what nationality she’s playing at now. Perhaps she’s just ambiguously foreign.

Newton will never be anything other than obnoxiously American with a heavy dose of German tossed in for good measure, same as Hermann is pretentiously English-German and nothing in between.

“Someone’s gotta save the world.”

“We’re just grabbing my coat,” Olinda interrupts. “Then we’re going out for drinks. You’re welcome to join,” she adds, though she doesn’t look at all certain that Newton is. She looks worried that Newton is going to steal Marianne from her. 

“Yeah! If that’s cool,” he says, tossing the newly repaired iPod carelessly onto the bench and looking around for his jacket.

Olinda excuses herself to go get her jacket and Newton glances down at Marianne.

“You good for food?”

“If you’ve got something…”

He does, in a black-coloured bottle so no one can see in and they each take a couple mouthfuls before Olinda returns with a new coat of lipstick and her favourite coat. She looked a little put out at how close Marianne was standing to Newton, so Newton does his dance of digging into his pockets for his phone.

“What time is it in Hong Kong?” he asks, mostly to bring attention to what he is doing. “My boyfriend’s there,” he adds to Marianne, and makes a great show of texting Hermann to say he’ll be out tonight and thus not around if he wants to talk.

Not that he would, probably.

It’s been… tense.

Both of them feel it and both of them are trying, but there’s a lot going on. Newton understands. Well, he tries to understand. He tries to be pragmatic and logical, but really he’s half a heartbeat from giving up on the kaiju and flying home.

Home being where Hermann is.

Sometimes he dreams of nothing more than curling up in a bed where Hermann has been, sheets almost cold and smelling of chalk and blood.

He misses him with an ache that curdles the acid in his stomach and melts the tendons of his legs.

But there is a war, and he must fight.

 

The bar they go to is the bar they always go to, and there are already some of the Shatterdome team around a table. Newton finds himself squished between that Hansen kid and one of the new K-Scientists, one of the lucky few from Lima. (The unlucky don’t have jobs anymore.)

The beer is warm from sitting in a jug on the table and it’s too hot with Chuck’s thigh pressed against his, and everyone is too loud. He leans across the table to shout at Marianne, laughing and reminiscing, safe in the warmth and the noise. Marianne is one of the few nice vampires in the world. Even if she weren’t family Newton thinks he’d claim her. It’s rare that there’s an old one he actually likes. Most of them are like Lars, or worse.

Chuck is a grumpy shit ready to get mad at anyone and everyone, needing to prove himself worthy even to people who don’t give a fuck. He gets drunk and he gets into fights, that’s about the way of things. He gets into a fight at around eleven, which is earlier than usual and for some reason Newton is the one told to escort him back to base.

Marianne and Olinda follow, Olinda holding Marianne’s hand as though she’s about to escape and Marianne apparently waiting for a challenge from Newton. Newton doesn’t care, too busy keeping a firm grip on Chuck’s wrist.

“Look, big guy,” says Newton. “I know you wanna fight but let’s get real, I’m about as feisty as a guinea pig. It wouldn’t be any fun for you.”

Chuck’s arms are huge, even his forearms, and Newton’s having trouble holding on. Apparently there’s a couple engineers who need be introduced to his fists.

“You need a hand?” asks Marianne.

“Nah, I think I’ve got it. He’s like a bulldog. A drunk bulldog,” Newton corrects himself, pulling Chuck away from colliding with the wall.

“Kind of ruined your evening,” says Olinda.

“Nah. Better mine than yours. Where’s his room? Chuck, where’s your room?”

“Level three,” says Olinda.

“Three-four-?” says Chuck, who forgets what he is saying midword and steadies himself by putting a heavy hand on Newton’s shoulder.

“I’ll figure it out,” says Newton. “You young’uns hurry on off.”

Chuck bounces off the walls and Newton’s tired from the weight of him, but eventually they find Chuck’s room. Newton’s the one who’s left to dig through Chuck’s back pocket for his keycard.

“I’ll leave you to it,” says Newton. Chuck just sways in the doorway. Newton sighs. “Okay, come on then, big guy,” he says, putting Chuck’s arm over his shoulders again and leading him into his bedroom.

It’s far cleaner than Newton would have imagined. Not that he’s been imaging the Ranger’s bedroom, but if he’d been asked he would have presumed a mess of clothes and biscuit crumbs. Instead it’s nearly neat, lived in, but neat.

Chuck falls gratefully down onto the bed and tries to lift his legs to reach his shoes. Newton makes a disgusted noise.

“Thought I’d never do this for one of you again,” he mutters to himself.

“One of me?” asks Chuck. “One of me?” he repeats. “Let me tell you, mate,” he begins.

“Shut up,” says Newton. “Have a Tim Tam or something.”

“It’s bad enough,” says Chuck. “Seeing myself in dad’s memories.” He makes a face at Newton, but doesn’t seem to really be talking to him. Newton gets both his shoes off and lines them up by the desk. “It’s hard. I gotta be more. Than what I am.” He squints up at Newton.

“Dude, you gotta stop this,” sighs Newton.

“You sound like my dad.”

“Maybe you should listen to him,” says Newton, faintly appalled that he is giving fatherly advice.

“Dad nearly threw me out, you know,” says Chuck. “But gran got mad, so he had to keep me. How fucked up is that?”

Newton has no idea what he’s talking about. Chuck’s struggling out of his clothes, awkwardly tugging at his socks and fumbling with his belt. Newton helps him, mostly because he’s afraid that Chuck will try to stand up and then he’ll fall over, and Newton has no desire to drag the huge lump of a human back onto the bed.

“And somehow we’re drift compatible. It’s all about trust. I trust him?” He shakes his head and tries to lift off his shirt. It gets caught on his chin and it’s up to Newton to save him. It’s then, leaning over him, that he sees the same faint scars that he recalls on Tendo’s chest.

Oh.

That’s… far more complicated than Newton had thought it was.

“Your dad tries.”

“Not hard enough.”

Newton thinks it possibly goes the other way, too; Chuck’s a spoilt brat who clings to reasons to be messed up. He doesn’t want to get happier, he just wants to stay angry.

“But,” Chuck sighs, lying back. “There’s a war. Gotta keep…” He closes his eyes, and drifts off.

Gotta keep angry, Newton realises. Perhaps he’s afraid that if he’s happy he’ll stop fighting.

There are worse reasons.

 

 

 

 

The conversation is happening before Hermann walks into the mess hall, one hand on his cane and the other around his mug of half-finished tea. He feels tired and dazed and he cannot believe he just woke up. He sees Tendo already sitting and goes to join him. Tendo’s gotten in the habit of getting something hot for Hermann so he doesn’t have to wrangle with his cane and whatever else he’s carrying; usually a stack of folders but today it’s tea.

He sits, takes the plate and finds a steaming curry over rice. He knows for a fact that this sort of thing isn’t what they’re eating in other parts of the world, and he would feel a little guilty about taking food he doesn’t strictly need, but it smells good and burns his tongue.

“I’m just saying,” says Harry, “if kaiju are real what else is real?”

“I’ll put fifty on there being nothing like ET out there, at all, not even a little,” says Gillian.

“What about werewolves?” muses Pat. She tilts her head to the side. “Always thought my dog was a shapeshifter, at least.”

“Why?” asks Tendo.

“My books were always in different places.”

“Doesn’t count,” says Harry. “I know you. You lose your pen the moment you put it down.”

“Vampires could be real.”

“Scientifically impossible,” Gillian says, firmly.

“How do you figure that?” asks Hermann, softly.

“Everything needs sunlight.”

“I believe my colleague has an entire list of species that do not require sunlight.”

Gillian tries again. “Blood doesn’t have any nutritional value.”

Hermann looks down at his plate of curry. “I’ll give you that one,” he concedes. “I have always wondered if mermaids are real.”

“Probably not,” says Harry. “Or, probably not anymore.”

There’s a moment of silence at the table. The ecology of the ocean is shot to shit, most species dead or endangered and there’s only so much that conservation groups can do or want to do, what with kaiju popping out of the water every few months without warning.

 

 

 

 

“Dude!”

Hermann is used to this by now: answering the Skype call to a horrendous shriek from Newton, to be followed by a garbled mess of words that Hermann is expected to understand on the first go.

“Newton,” Hermann chides. “It is too early for such loud noises.

“Whatever, dude.” Newton is bouncing, actually bouncing. “Dude, dude. I gotta. Look.”

“Deep breaths,” says Hermann. His eyes are flicking away from the monitor and Newton taps his camera to get his attention back. “Spit it out, then, before you explode.”

“I’m coming home. I’m gonna be there for the New Year.”

The year ends in a week; Hermann opens up iCal just to be certain.

“Are you sure?” He doesn’t quite trust Newton to not have misread the orders.

“I’ll send you the bloody email,” says Newton. He’s picked up a slight Australian drawl, open-mouthed vowels and new swear words. Hermann, privately, finds it adorable.

Hermann’s email dings half a second later and he reads the email.

December 30, the date is.

Newton’s coming home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day that Raleigh arrives is not a good day. Newton’s been in Hong Kong just long enough to discover that the Sydney Shatterdome was half destroyed by Mutavore, and too many of the people he was with just a few days before are gone for good.

Hermann tries to understand. He heats up blood and lets him play his music, but this is no way to say hello: over memories of a species that Hermann doesn’t even care for.

They’ve had a fight, and that’s all they’ve done so far: Newton yelling at Hermann and Hermann riling him up in turn. They know each other so well that it only takes a few sentences to get the anger properly going.

Hermann’s the one who answers the phone so Hermann gets to shout that even if his bloody beloved humans died there’s more kaiju to dig through so shouldn’t Newton be happy?

Newton can’t stand the flippancy in Hermann’s voice, hates that he’s acting as though Newton doesn’t fucking care. He throws his glasses case at Hermann, hitting him on the shoulder, and nearly runs away. The helicopter takes far too fucking long, enough time that Hermann catches up to him on deck. Maybe he wants to apologise but Newton doesn’t want to hear it.

Hermann is unhappy to be out of his lab and unhappy about the low supply of blood in the fridge and unhappy with the mess in the lab and unhappy. Eternally unhappy.

They both are.

Absolutely nobody pays their loud argument any mind, though a few comment that at least with Newton back Hermann has someone to direct his moods towards. He hasn’t slept in more days than he can count and the only words he knows is the Breach, the Breach, how do we get rid of that goddamn rift in fucking time and fucking space and Jesus Gott-im-Himmel he needs some fucking blood. He can feel the need curling in his veins and through his teeth and he nearly drags one of the techs against the wall and takes her right there because he is so hungry he could die.

He hasn’t been this hungry since he turned.

That’s an exaggeration.

But it’s been a horridly long day, and Newton’s in a mood because his mortals had the audacity to be crushed by an alien monster, and Hermann wants him to shut up for just one second. Just one.

“Careful!” shrieks Newton, rushing up to one of the workers wheeling the giant cases. The kaiju moves within and the rain is starting again. Hermann pulls his hood up and glares at everyone.

“Look, dude,” Newton is saying – repeating. He’s been saying something to Hermann for the past half hour and he hasn’t come to the point yet. Hermann thinks he’s trying to say that it’s all just stress and if only they could just fuck it out, but he’s trying to say that without saying it.

Hermann could not feel less like having sex than he does in this moment.

 “Hold the door!” Newton yells, racing after Pentecost and Mako, leaving Hermann behind. Herman winces, turning on his bad side and holding on to his cane. Today the pain is in his lower back and he’d lie down if he thought it would do any good. He eyes the tattoo over Newton’s neck and considers feeding.

Sometimes he dreams about it.

Blood hot from the vein.

“Come on, Hermann!” calls Newton, as though Hermann can move any faster than he is, but then Newton rushes back to him, perhaps in part to guide the last of the specimens indoors and perhaps to walk with Hermann.

Hermann hopes it’s the latter reason, but he doesn’t know.

Kaiju groupie, he thinks, more bitterly than usual. He pulls off the hood and shakes water off his sleeve, knowing that it will drip down onto his hand.

“Hermann,” says Newton sweetly, sarcastically. “These are human beings. Why don’t you say hello?”

“This is Doctor Geiszler –”

“Call me Newt, please. I mean, you can call me Doctor if you want, but I’ve got so many degrees that you’d have to call me Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor –”

“Newton!” Hermann interrupts. “Try to act like a functioning member of society for once in your life.”

The new guy is looking between them uncertainly, from Hermann’s cane to Newton’s quick motions of rolling up his sleeves.

It’s Chuck, Hermann thinks, though he’s met the man only a few times before and this one has the wrong accent and neither he nor anyone else looks exceptionally unhappy. He blinks, shaking his head and feeling the hunger inside of him, the deeper, primal one. Newton’s had him on edge all day and he’s been dreaming only in red.

Mako is looking at the man with equal parts intrigue and irritation, and Hermann realises that it’s Raleigh a moment too late to stop Newton from showing off the ink tattooed down his arms.

Newton’s proud of his tattoos. Hermann gets it. He really does, for all that Newton thinks he doesn’t. It’s the end of the world and they never thought they were going to die. And tattoos are meant to be impossible on a vampire. They’ve stuck for seven years now. 

Hermann grits his teeth and focuses very hard on not killing them all. He’s seen it before, a vampire ripping an entire group of humans to shreds. He wonders if he could, with his leg and his feebleness.

Of course, Newton would be mad at him.

It’s only Newton’s hands turning him away from the closing doors that make him realise whatever was going on is over.

“I need to get to work,” he says. He focuses on Hermann’s face, and all the arguments they’ve been having suddenly fade away. “You need something to eat.” Newton kisses his nose and Hermann growls low in his throat, but he allows Newton to put his hand on his elbow and guide him away.

 

Hermann grips the desk, hard, and glances at Newton. Newton is unconcerned, sprawled comfortably as though he didn’t have his head in a kaiju mere hours before. Hermann wants to get out of the way of the monitor. He wants to get out of the room. He eyes the hologramed screen with suspicion, as though Hannibal Chau can reach out of it and pull him in.

“Black market dealers, right?” Newton is saying. He’s sitting on one hand, to stop the nervous tapping that it has developed in the last hour or so.

Monitor-Hannibal grins a gold-toothed grin and Hermann feels his stomach twist. He wants to shout. He wants to shout no, and grab Newton and pull him in tight and not let him go.

Some people - most people, on discovering that vampires are real, stop going outside at night so much and never sleep quite so soundly as they did before. Then there are those who find themselves a silver-tipped stake and take to the streets to hunt.

And there are others. Those like Hannibal Chau.

Vampire blood cures illnesses. It makes you high. Newton’s speculated that it might cure cancer, or at least help get rid of it.

Vampire bones are stronger.

Vampire cells regenerate faster, heal quicker.

They remember everything.

You can cut a vampire up and sell all of them, from teeth to toenails.

Hermann’s been hunted before. He’d been younger and stupid and made himself an easy target, staying too long in one place, being careless with his meals. It had been stupidity. He’d rushed through his thralls and grabbed food where he could, and he’d been careless and nearly been caught.

He doesn’t know if Newton’s ever faced that sort of thing, but he has to have. America wasn’t safe. China wasn’t safe. Nowhere, really, is safe for long.

Pentecost meets Newton’s eyes, serious and fatherly. It’s been two years since his last encounter with them as vampires, and sometimes it’s almost as though he’s forgotten what they are. (He hasn’t, he’s just realised that even thousand year old creatures still play with dinosaurs and pettishly hide all the scalpel blades and play the same song over and over and over again until Hermann is forced out of the lab and into LOCCENT just to have some peace and quiet.)

“Newton,” says Pentecost. “Do not trust him.”

Newton takes half a moment to answer. “I won’t,” he grins, careless as always. Pentecost looks at Hermann, who is looking at Newton hopelessly. He is in love, and terrified that this is all they’ll ever have: a war putting them at odds and stupid, short interactions scattered over the centuries.

He wants to devour Newton, wants to take him and keep him and protect him and never let him go.

Hermann watches in a sick sort of silence as Newton grabs his jacket, discovering half a sandwich from probably three days ago still sitting on the side so he shoves that into his mouth and grins at Hermann.

“For god’s sake, drink something before you go,” says Hermann, in lieu of what he wants to say.

“There’s only a pint left,” says Newton. “You always get mad when I - where’s my glasses? Dude? Did you put my - they’re on my face,” he realises. There is blood dribbling from his nose again.

“Newton, please.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it.”

Hermann gets up and goes over to him, taking his hanky from his pocket and dabbing at the blood on his upper lip.

They stand there, close together not quite meeting each other’s eyes.

“I have to,” says Newton, eventually. Hermann doesn’t reach for him, and Newton leaves without being touched in any kind of farewell.

 

 

The streets are loud. They’re so fucking loud. He’s not been around so many people in so long that it takes him several minutes to gasp through the pain of the noise and the lives being lived all around him before he remembers to flick on the light he has and look at the card in his hand. Right. Right. He can do this.

Hannibal Chau might be terrifying but he is only human.

Newton is so much more than merely that.

The bones of the dead kajiu formed into a place of worship taunt him, and he grits his teeth and wishes he’d taken Hermann up on that offer of blood. He doesn’t love the kaiju. He’s terrified, fascinated, intrigued. There’s life beyond this earth, intelligent life, life that wants to destroy, sure, but it’s out there.

He always wondered, and now he knows.

And yeah, he thinks. Yeah, he kind of loves them.

“I’m looking for Hannibal Chau,” he admits.

“Hannibal Chau, huh?” says the man, bookshelves sliding back and sweet Jesus Newton needs to get some of those. He has one of those bookshelf doors that reveals a sort-of secret room, but sliding shelves?

He wonders, briefly, momentarily, if Hermann would be okay with that sort of thing. In their house. That one day they’ll have together.

They will. A bed big enough for Hermann’s sprawling tendencies and Newton’s need for half a dozen pillows. Maybe they’ll have a cat. Hermann seems to be the cat sort of person.

He swallows the thought that maybe he’ll never find out.

On the other side there’s more than Newton could imagine. If this is where Pentecost has been getting his samples… Well.

“Oh my – this is,” he swallows, spins. “This is heaven.” He can’t believe it. This has been here, this whole time? He could have been here, instead of at the Shatterdome, here surrounded by everything he dreams of – a live parasite, still wriggling, the workers not in masks or even protective gear so either they have a high death rate or they know how to deal with Kaiju Blue.

He wants to grab it all and rush off with it, bury himself in it and – The brain. He needs a brain.

He hears the shoes before he sees the man, and he turns and he swallows.

“I’m looking for, uh,” he holds up the card, blank now without the light on it, “Hannibal Chau?”

“Who wants to know?”

Newton has his name on the tip of his tongue when he glances behind and sees one of the girls beyond open her mouth. Her teeth are sharp.

Implants are uncommon but not unheard of, not in particular communities. There are people who get their teeth filed to points and there are those who kill vampires and get them put in.

“I really can’t,” he glances again at the woman’s teeth. “Uh, I can’t say.”

There’s suddenly a knife in his nose and if he weren’t so torn apart from the kaiju in the corners of his mind and out of practice from defending himself he’d have his teeth around the man’s throat in his mouth.

“You’re a fuckin’ fanger,” he says.

“Uhh… Guilty?” says Newton. “I take it you’re Hannibal.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t add you to my collection. It’s been a while since I met one of you.”

“Look, I work for Stacker Pentecost. He sent me,” says Newton, fast and desperate with his eyes on the knife in Hannibal’s hand.

“You’re one of them scientists.”

“Guilty,” Newton says again.

Hannibal looks down at him. “You’re one of the things gonna save our lives?”

“If I can get a kaiju brain.”

“What the hell do you want that for?” exclaims Hannibal.

Newton tells him.

 

 

 

 

Hermann rushes for LOCCENT and interrupts Pentecost to talk to Tendo.

“Get a helicopter on the pad for me, immediately.”

Pentecost stares down at him. “Excuse me?”

“He is going to kill himself by drifting again. He needs someone to share the load and,” he leans in and hisses, “unless you think a human can take the weight of that brain you will let me go.”

Pentecost is taken aback by the blunt force of Hermann. Hermann stands his ground and stares back. He’s panicked and angry and a little afraid of what he can do.

He’s never personally been so out of control, but he’s seen other vampires in that state. Heard about them. He grips his cane.

“We require you here,” says Pentecost. Hermann is always in LOCCENT for any kaiju attack, to provide assistance to Tendo and advice to the other LOCCENT staff. “For the good of this city.”

Hermann wants to bite him, but Pentecost stands his ground. “So long there are kaiju on the ground there is no point you putting yourself in danger. We still need you here. Are we clear, Doctor Gottlieb?”

“Sir,” says Hermann. He grips the back of Tendo’s chair. He’s shaking.

He’s terrified.

It feels exactly like the end of the world, and all he can think is that Newton will die without him.

“Get your head into gear,” snaps Pentecost. That is his daughter out there, and his… Herc. Whatever Herc is to him. Hermann is not the only one with someone he cares about on the line. He must remember that.

(But these are humans, a small part of his mind hisses at him. Inconsequential, bleeding souls that will die as soon as he blinks. Yes. Yes they are. But they are going to save the world.)

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

The Drift is not an adventure into the unknown. The Drift is a series of memories that soothe them. The Drift is like remembering dreams you never knew you’d forgotten. The Drift is sinking into the ether, the Drift is paradise, it’s like drinking blood but better, it’s a warm body beside you on a cold night, an unexpected rainbow, it’s a hot coffee a warm bath, it’s heat seeping into them both in ways they never thought they’d feel again.

The kaiju tears them apart limb from limb and then collapses at the sheer weight of the centuries the two vampires are carrying.

Vampires dream in red. They dream in red and blood and they dream in viscera and they dream of the sun peaking through the leaves of trees, always always hidden, always out of reach.

Vampires do not dream very often.

When they do it is horrible.

The Drift.

It’s blue.

It’s blue like they remember the sky and it’s blue like a warm summer’s day and it’s blue like daytime and blue like the caress of a breeze over a sunny field. It’s blue.

And it is heavy, and it is shocking, and just the weight of each other is enough to make Newton stop breathing.

They’re both rushing, rushing through memories of JapananjapanKoreanorthsouthCHINA and Hermann is filled with Germany.

They don’t think they have secrets from each other - not proper secrets, just things they haven’t told each other because there’s been no time to regal the years in minute detail, but there’s Germany and books and cold big empty rooms, and Lars sends Hermann letters only occasionally and visits even less often, and Hermann teaches himself to enjoy being alone because he realises that there is no other option. He reads his books and he teaches himself to not look up at the sound of a door closing down the far end of a hallway, because his family - and Newton knew.

He knew that Hermann had been human, once, had been born into a family and had parents and probably brothers and sisters, but here in the Drift they are blue and they are loved.

Hermann did not leave his family because he did not love them, he left because he loved something more, and it’s with a pang of panic that Newton wonders when Hermann will leave him.

Everyone leaves.

Not in a morbid death kind of way, but everyone leaves because he’s short and annoying and never had a problem with cutting things open so long as they were dead first, and everyone leaves because he doesn’t like keeping thralls and he’s not very good at relationships and in any case, eventually they’ll notice that he’s getting no more grey hair and start to ask questions.

Everyone leaves.

Hermann’s in Germany with books and covered in so many fur coats that he’s a moving mound of dead animal, and he doesn’t eat.

Newton thought he had a problem with burying his teeth into warm necks, but he was never Hermann, and of course - of fucking course! Their minds get stuck on that for half a second that might as well be another decade as they argue the point, well obviously, it’s vile, Newton, honestly, how can you stomach it? And Newton saying, well, dude, you hypnotise them, and it’s not so bad, not really, it’s life, you gotta keep going - Hermann eats only when Lars reminds him to eat, until eventually Hermann resigns himself to this as eternity, and Lars won’t let him go to the Arabian countries unless he proves he can swallow a human whole.

It’s embarrassing now, of course, a child being bullied into eating his greens by a tired parent.

Worse because now he dreams of little else. Blood. Dripping, hot, wet. Life.

It’s a thousand years travelled in a few minutes and they get only pieces: Hermann’s first kiss, Newton’s hundred and fifty-fourth time having sex - Hermann recoils with a little wrinkle in his nose, and Newton laughs. For a moment it’s just them, together, no third party involved, and it’s Newton and he loves Hermann.

He loves Hermann so much he’s afraid that just allowing himself to feel even a portion of it properly and fully will overload the connection.

They remember France, the first time. The ship over to America. The plane over to America - planes! Newton hates them, hates trains and planes and busses and cars, and if he had his way he’d never travel anywhere at all, not until teleportation is invented.

The Bomb.

The Berlin Wall.

Dolly the sheep.

The kaiju.

Blueblueblue the whole world is blue and it is burning, not fire but acid and somehow

Som-

-ehow

That is far more -

Hermann grabs blindly for Newton and finds nothing, he is alone and he is alone and this is how he is going to die, drowned in acid from these horrid creatures from another planet, and no! No it’s not meant to be like this! He searches for Newton and - Newton is alone in blue. He is serene. He is looking down, and he is floating and watching his legs dissolve into acid.

\- terrifying.

It’s blue.

It is dissolving.

They leave the Drift with enough force to give Newton whiplash and to send Hermann vomiting into the rubbish.

 

 

They do not save the world, but they tell the pilots how to do it. It’s nearly the same thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A moment later the camera moves from them and Hermann folds Newton into his arms, or Newton folds Hermann into his, and they bury their heads in each other’s shoulders and hold on.

Hermann’s mind is still reeling from the shock of unordered colour that is Newton’s mind, a psychedelic comic from the seventies mashed together with the colour schemes of the Rococo Era. It is like a flock of startled rosellas bursting from a wattle in bloom, and Hermann has a headache merely from the memory.

He dreads to think what Newton is feeling. He feels that his own mind is starkly grey and orderly, dressed like factory workers from the Nineteenth Century, disagreeably dull and repellently rigid. 

But he holds on, because this is Newton, and even if they never drifted he could never let him go.

Newton holds on for much the same reason, but also he is tired and drifted twice, all his mind is stained in toxic blue and he is afraid that if he lets go of Hermann - now or ever, if he lets go he will fall and he will never find a way to claw out of the pit in the ocean that he has allowed himself to tumble into.

They hold onto each other until Herc slaps one of them on the shoulder - it doesn’t matter who, this close to the memory of the drift, they have not yet disentangled one from the other and they are the same person, still - and tells them that they’re bringing Raleigh and Mako home.

LOCCENT empties in a rush. There’s a general consensus to find alcohol, and to meet in the Jaeger Hanger to drink and to await the return of Mako and Raleigh.

Herc leaves first, sliding out of the way of consolatory shoulder-pats. Max is beside him, tongue lolling, unaware of anything that’s gone on.

They leave, together, Hermann and Newton walking in step with half a foot between them. They don’t talk until they get to the lab, and then they slump down on their respective sides.

The world is spinning faster than its usual 465.1 m/s, and Hermann badly needs an aspirin and a lie-down. Aspirin doesn’t do much for his kind but he feels like that’s what he should be doing. Curtains closed, and hush, now, child, mummy’s got a headache.

Newton looks far worse. Newton looks like he’s been put through a car crush, twice. He’s slumped in his chair in the middle of the room staring up at the ceiling. Hermann rather suspects he could ring his father and laugh at him down the line, but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at Newton, who looks at the ceiling.

“We should go to Medical,” says Newton. Hermann wants to point out what a stupid idea that is, but he doesn’t have the energy. “Not that it’d do much good,” continues Newton, and Hermann marvels that even now the man is finding words to launch off his tongue. “You didn’t get an MRI so we have no idea what your brain normally looks like.” The usual bite is gone out of Newton’s voice. He sounds very much as if he is talking because he is uncertain of what else he should be doing.

Hermann considers telling him to shut up. Instead, he grips his cane in his hand, rises to his feet, puts some blood on the stove and goes to run a bath.

What else there is to do? He is cold and he wants to be clean, and it’s only as he reaches into the back of the fridge that he even realises that he can feel Newton.

Can feel him, now.

Post-drift.

He didn’t even notice. Scarcely notices now. He closes his eyes and can see only in blue. That startles a response, spilling blood from the place in the bag that he’s cut it and splattering it over the bench.

He leaves it. Doesn’t clean it. Doesn’t care.

Newton, he thinks, distantly.

It’s unimportant. He’s been affected this way before by drinking Newton’s blood, and Newton’s had the same problems, a suddenly rigid mathematical approach to theories that need to be far more flexible - and then the understanding that mathematics shifts and dances and moves, that maths is, as its basic core, a descriptor of the universe and it changes, wavers, alters.

Mathematics is the most flexible, most pure state of the universe and some days, sometimes, Newton understands that.

For now, the Newton part of Hermann simply doesn’t care that he’s made a mess.

He takes his blood and stretches out in the bath with the mug warm in his hands, and he leans back against the tiles and closes his eyes forgetting - Newton, or exhaustion, or both, but Hermann does not forget to remember such particular facts - forgetting that he will see blue.

It is as though his blood has turned that colour, he has become kaiju and the insides of his eyelids are this fluorescent brightness. His eyes fly open.

 _Scheiße_.

He can cope with Newton.

He cannot cope with blue. He leaves his eyes open until they water and then he blinks only as quickly as he can, focusing instead on the smell of old soap in his small bathroom, the cold air billowing off the tiles, the music -

There’s music.

Newton’s music. He holds on to that and closes his eyes again - blue, still, but it’s not acid. It’s.

It is like what he thinks the sky would actually be like. He brings the mug to his lips and drinks, and strains his ears.

It’s The Hoosiers. Worried About Ray.

He knows that if it weren’t for the Drift he would not have known that. The song makes absolutely no sense in the circumstances. Like always. He sighs and drinks. He wonders, for a brief moment, about the future. There’s so much of it, all of a sudden. A whole world opening out. So many places to go, so much to see. So much research… He savours that though, lets it run over his tongue. He’s going to find himself a nice job at a decent university and bury himself for the next fifty years in every single journal in existence. He might not read a novel ever again.

There’s a knock on the door, and then the door is rudely opened and Newton comes bounding in. Hermann opens his eyes a crack and watches him critically through the half-open sliding door of the bathroom.

“There’s a party.”

“Then go,” says Hermann. He’s feeling as though Newton’s already here, already with him. He doesn’t need Newton physically. He’s in his mind, his head.

“Aren’t we gonna talk about this?” asks Newton, pushing the door open slightly so that he can lean against the frame, legs crossed at the ankle and arms folded over his chest. He hasn’t changed, the shirt still white-with-grey-smudges, the knot of his tie drawn too tight and his face a mess of blood and grease.

Hermann considers. “What’s there to say?”

“You drifted with me!” Newton shrieks. For months Hermann had been telling him his Pons idea wouldn’t work, drifting with a kaiju, far too dangerous, do you want to bloody well kill yourself you childish fool? The incoherent memory is cut off by a splash of water and Hermann sitting up.

“Your point?”

“I - “ Newton fumbles. He wants to talk about this, wants to talk about it with everyone. He wants to drag Hermann around the base and say look, look, this old crotchety vampire drifted with - with. He meets Hermann’s eyes. “You drifted with _me!”_

“And why would I not?” asks Hermann. He almost adds, the world was ending, but he cannot be so flippant. He considers, and holds out the mug. Automatically Newton takes it. Hermann waves a hand. “Yes, drink, please.” Newton needs it more than him. Probably Newton should have some of Hermann’s blood.

Newton takes a sip, scarcely wetting his lips. “What now, dude? What do we do?”

“What we have always done,” says Hermann. “We do science.” Newton is looking so horridly lost that Hermann takes pity on him, and perhaps he wanted more immediate advice. “Go and shower. Put on something sensible. I am not going anywhere with you looking like that.”

Newton nearly retorts that Hermann went across Hong Kong and into LOCCENT with him looking like this - hell, Hermann put his arm around Newton when he was looking like this - but that’s not the important part of now.

“You - the party? You want to go? Really?”

Newton could probably ask Hermann to climb an active volcano with him and Hermann would do it. Hermann’s been thinking - very idly, but he has been thinking about a future and a house and a bed big enough to fit both of them in it together. Now that the kaiju are gone that thought isn’t quite so distant.

He’s got Newton in his head, sure, but he wants Newton next to him, too.

Instead of admitting all that Hermann only nods his head.

“Now go wash up,” he adds in a frown. “You are a child, and I am going nowhere with you.”

Newton’s eye is bloodshot and his lips are too-red, face too white. He looks garish, a child’s painting of a nightmare. “I love you,” says Newton.

Hermann knows. Herman felt it and thought he was feeling his own thoughts, absolutely unsurprised at the magnitude of them. He’s still reeling a little from Newton’s emotion - breadth and height and length of it, an area too large to properly calculate and ever expanding like the universe itself.

He opens his mouth to return the sentiment, but Newton’s already gone.

It’s okay, though. They were together in the Drift.

Any secrets they have are an accident only, and this is no accident.

 

 

 

 

If you’ve ever asked the question, how often did Newton Geiszler dance to ‘Weapon of Choice’ and how often did Hermann Gottlieb yell that he is not and never will be anything like Christopher Walken, the answer is twice in 2020, three times in 2021, eighteen times in 2022, fifty-seven times in 2023, zero times in 2024 (Hermann deleted it from Newton’s ipod and modified the PPDC firewall so that the song could not, ever, be downloaded, and then Newton went to Sydney), and once during 2025 (Raleigh had the song on his ipod and lent it to Newton for while he packed up the lab).

That time in 2025 Hermann walked in, sighed, and realised that this was his soul mate and this is how is eternity would be spent.

And then he yelled at him, because some habits will never die.

 


End file.
